Friday 19 October 2012

KIngs College London - X-Ray Imaging of DNA Molecules


One of the most momentous discoveries of our era is of how the structure of hereditary material is comprised within every living organism’s cells. Francis Crick and James Watson proposed a structure for DNA in 1953 and their model was underpinned by the work conducted the previous three years beforehand at the Medical Research Council Biophysics Unit of King’s College London. The prime movers in obtaining the raw data for Crick and Watson to help formulate their momentous discovery were Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin. Wilkins and Franklin were responsible for refining x-Ray technology to a new level of clarity, resolution and sophistication in the newly formed Medical Research Council Biophysics Unit of King’s College in London.
Because of the very precious nature of these x-Ray Films Max was given the task of scanning them onsite at Kings College. The x-Ray images were originally captured on a wide range of film sizes ranging from small images right up to long rolls. The rolled images were scanned in stages and later joined together by our highly skilled image restoration experts.



Images above by Kind Permission of Kings College London