What was the title of Rosalind Franklin's 1953 Nature paper with Raymond Gosling?

The story behind the answer

Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling’s 1953 Nature paper was titled “Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate.” The paper appeared on 25 April 1953 in Nature volume 171, alongside papers by Watson and Crick and by Wilkins and colleagues.

“Sodium thymonucleate” was the period’s chemical name for DNA in its sodium-salt form. The title reflects the paper’s emphasis on the physical and crystallographic behavior of DNA fibers rather than presenting the complete double-helix model in the style of Watson and Crick’s article.

Franklin and Gosling reported evidence for a two-chain helical structure and discussed how the molecule’s phosphate groups were arranged. Their work drew on the X-ray diffraction patterns Franklin produced at King’s College London, including the experimental program that led to Photo 51. The paper is often overlooked because the Watson–Crick article became the best-known of the three, but all three appeared in the same issue and together formed a crucial scientific sequence.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Aug. 2026

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