What disease caused Rosalind Franklin's death?

Rosalind Franklin died from ovarian cancer on 16 April 1958. She was 37 years old. Her death came only a few years after her influential DNA research and while she was leading important investigations into the structure of viruses.

Franklin’s illness was diagnosed in 1956, but she continued working during treatment. At Birkbeck College, she and her team were studying tobacco mosaic virus with X-ray crystallography. She was preparing a large model of the virus for the Brussels World’s Fair when her health deteriorated.

Franklin’s cancer is sometimes mentioned alongside speculation that her extensive exposure to X-rays contributed to her illness. However, the precise cause of her ovarian cancer has not been established. Her death also explains why she did not share the 1962 Nobel Prize awarded for work on nucleic acids: Nobel rules did not generally allow awards to people who had already died. The prize went to James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins.