In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published an article in the British Science Journal, Nature. They developed a method about how DNA structure was formed which they called the Watson – Crick Model. This model was a double helix structure of DNA to make it easier to explain how DNA worked. This discovery was known as one of the most important scientific discoveries of the century and is still used in high schools and colleges today. In 1968, James Watson published a book called The Double Helix. Anne Sayre published Rosalind Franklin and DNA in 1975. Her book stated how Watson and Crick would not have been able to make the DNA model without Rosalind Franklin’s x-ray diffraction studies. Rosalind Franklin was put in charge of an X-ray diffraction laboratory at Kings College in London. She took an X-ray of DNA which led Watson and Crick to discover the structure of DNA.
Watson and Crick worked together to determine the structure of DNA at Cambridge University. They were able to figure out the correct position and structural pairing of the nucleotide bases based on Rosalind Franklin’s X-rays of DNA. They constructed a model with the knowledge they gained from Franklin’s X-rays and other scientists’ previous experiments. Although they were greatly praised for their work and new discoveries that they had made, they did not credit Franklin for the information that she provided them which made their discoveries possible.