Which King's College physicist worked with Rosalind Franklin on DNA X-ray studies?

Maurice Wilkins was the King's College physicist who worked with Rosalind Franklin on X-ray studies of DNA.

Wilkins joined John Randall's Biophysics Unit at King's College London after researching physics and phosphorescence. He began DNA diffraction work before Franklin arrived in 1951, helping establish the laboratory's early approach to studying DNA fibres.

Franklin and Wilkins worked in the same research environment, but unclear administrative arrangements created tension over their roles. Franklin and her graduate student Raymond Gosling produced important diffraction images, including Photo 51, while Wilkins continued related studies of DNA's hydrated B form.

A common mix-up is to name John Randall, who directed the unit, or Watson and Crick, who built the double-helix model at Cambridge. Wilkins was the King's College physicist and later shared the 1962 Nobel Prize with Watson and Crick for discoveries concerning nucleic-acid structure.