Expo 58, the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, displayed Rosalind Franklin’s five-foot model of tobacco mosaic virus.
Franklin began constructing the model in 1957 while leading virus research at Birkbeck College. The model represented tobacco mosaic virus, a rod-shaped plant virus whose structure she studied using X-ray diffraction. Its materials included table-tennis balls and plastic bicycle-handlebar grips, turning abstract molecular data into a large, accessible scientific display.
The model was intended for the International Science Pavilion at Expo 58, the first major international fair held after the Second World War. The fair opened on 17 April 1958, one day after Franklin died of ovarian cancer at age 37. Her colleagues displayed the model as planned, making it an unusual final public presentation of her work.
The event is often confused with later world fairs such as Expo 67 in Montreal, Expo 70 in Osaka, or Seattle’s Century 21 Exposition. Those fairs occurred in different years and did not host this Franklin virus model.