Maurice Wilkins

MAURICE WILKINS CBE FRS d2004. New Zealand-born British biophysicist and Nobel laureate whose research spanned multiple areas of physics and biophysics, contributing to the scientific understanding of phosphorescence, isotope separation, optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction and to the development of radar. He is best known for his work at King's College London on the structure of DNA. His work on DNA falls into two distinct phases ; The first was in 1948–1950, when his initial studies produced the first clear X-ray images of DNA, which he presented at a conference in Naples in 1951 attended by James Watson. During the second phase, 1951–52, he produced clear "B form" "X" shaped images from squid sperm. He continued to test, verify and make significant corrections to the Watson–Crick DNA model and to study the structure of RNA. Wilkins, Crick and Watson were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material". He died in London aged 87 on October 5th 2004