Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture - How The Double Helix Was Really Discovered, And What Happens Next

Presented by Professor Emeritus Matthew Cobb, University of Manchester.There is an internet joke that goes ‘What did Watson and Crick discover in 1953? Rosalind Franklin’s data!’ Many people believe that a key image of DNA, taken by Franklin and her student Ray Gosling, provided Watson and Crick with the key to the structure of the molecule, and that Franklin was robbed of all credit.

Many people believe this version of events but what is the evidence to support it? New discoveries show what really happened in February 1953, while the friendships between Crick, Watson and Franklin that persisted until her untimely death in 1958 reveal a far closer and more collegial relationship than most people imagine.