DNA Papers #6: William Astbury and Florence Bell

Perspectives on Science

English - July 10, 2023 13:02 - 1 hour - 57.9 MB
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The sixth installment of this podcast series introduces a brand new player into the story of DNA: a technique from physics called X-ray crystallography. This technique would eventually play a key role in unlocking the secrets of DNA structure, but this 1938 paper by Leeds-based scientists William Astbury and Florence Bell marks the first instance of anyone attempting to use X-rays for the visualization of the nucleic acids. It is also the first paper in this series where the main contributor to the work was a woman.

Sharing their insights about the significance of the “X-Ray Study of Thymonucleic Acid” which was published in the prestigious journal Nature (v. 141: 747-748), are:

Manju Bansal, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Kersten Hall, University of Leeds
Matthew Meselson, Harvard University
Jan Witkowski, Cold Spring Laboratory

More resources and podcasts available at https://www.chstm.org/video/144

Recorded on April 4, 2023.