Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins
Wilkins, Maurice Hugh Frederick (1916-) was a British biophysicist who made important contributions to understanding the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). For his work in this area, he shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with biologists James Dewey Watson of the United States and Francis H. C. Crick of the United Kingdom.
Wilkins was born in Pongaroa, New Zealand. His family moved to the United Kingdom, and at the age of 6, he went to study at King Edward's School in Birmingham, England. He attended St. John's College, Cambridge, where he studied physics and received his bachelor's degree in 1938. He then went to the University of Birmingham to pursue graduate studies. For the next two years, he investigated luminescence and electron movement in crystals, which helped improve radar screens for use in World War II (1939–1945). In 1940, he received his doctor's degree.
By this time, England was involved in the war, and Wilkins joined a research team investigating how to separate uranium isotopes for atomic bombs. The research group was sent to the University of California, Berkeley, in 1944, to work with other scientists on the Manhattan Project, a secret program to develop the atomic bomb.
In the mid-1940's, Wilkins read a book that changed his career. In the book What Is Life? The Physical Aspects of the Living Cell, physicist and author Erwin Schrödinger suggested that quantum physics could be used to understand biological processes. Already disenchanted with the field of nuclear physics, Wilkins decided to pursue his interest in biology.
When he returned to England in 1945, his former graduate school professor, John T. Randall, offered Wilkins a position as physics lecturer in the newly established biophysics research unit at St. Andrews University in Scotland. The next year, Randall moved the research unit to London and created the biophysics unit at the Medical Research Council at King's College, and Wilkins joined him there. Over the years, Wilkins rose in rank at King's College. He became deputy director of the biophysics unit in 1955 and served as director from 1970 to 1972. He was director of the Medical Research Council's neurobiology unit from 1972 to 1974. At that time, the unit became the cell biophysics unit, and he served as its director until 1980. He retired from King's College as professor emeritus in 1981.
Wilkins was best known for his work that led to the discovery of the double helix model of DNA, the substance that transfers genetic information from one generation to the next. While working at King's College in London, Wilkins studied DNA using X-ray crystallography. He had already begun this line of research when physicist Rosalind Franklin joined the research team in 1951. At the same time, Watson and Crick, two scientists working at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, were investigating the structure of DNA. Using data from an X ray taken by Franklin, Watson and Crick were able to determine the structure of the DNA molecule and build a model of it.
The finding had a tremendous and immediate impact on the scientific community. It led to advancements in a number of areas, especially in the field of genetic engineering. In 1962, the three scientists were rewarded for their efforts with a Nobel Prize. However, controversy surrounds the discovery, as some experts believe that Franklin, who died in 1958, did not receive enough credit for her contribution. Franklin's work largely disproved an earlier theory about phosphate groups advanced by Linus Carl Pauling. In addition to his study of DNA, Wilkins used X-ray techniques to study ribonucleic acid (RNA), a molecule that is associated with chemical synthesis in the living cell.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Wilkins, Watson, and Crick received the Albert Lasker Award of the American Public Health Association in 1960. Wilkins became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1959. He was an honorary foreign member of the American Society of Biological Chemists and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He died on October 5, 2004, in London, England.