Raymond Gosling - Work at King's and DNA

Work At King's and DNA

At King's College London, Gosling worked on X-ray diffraction with Maurice Wilkins, analyzing samples of DNA which they prepared by hydrating and drawing out into thin filaments and photographing in a hydrogen atmosphere.

Gosling was then assigned to Rosalind Franklin when she joined King's College London in 1951. Together they produced the first X-ray diffraction photographs of the "form B" paracrystalline arrays of highly hydrated DNA. She was his academic supervisor. During the next two years, the pair worked closely together to perfect the technique of x-ray diffraction photography of DNA and obtained at the time the sharpest diffraction images of DNA. Gosling made the X-ray diffraction image of DNA known as "Photograph 51." This work led directly to the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine being awarded to Francis Crick, James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins. Gosling was the co-author with Franklin of one of the three DNA double helix papers published in Nature in April 1953.

Gosling briefly remained at King's College London following the completion of his thesis in 1954 before lecturing in physics at Queen’s College, University of St Andrews, and at the University of the West Indies.