Who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize with Watson and Crick for DNA structure?

Maurice Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with James Watson and Francis Crick for discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material.

Wilkins worked at King’s College London, where he studied DNA using X-ray diffraction. His research helped establish that DNA had a helical structure, and he contributed diffraction data that supported the double-helix model. He also showed Watson an important DNA diffraction image known as Photo 51, produced by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling.

The Nobel recognition is sometimes described simply as a prize for “discovering DNA’s structure,” but the official citation was broader. It recognized both the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its biological significance. Watson and Crick built the successful model, while Wilkins’ experimental work helped validate it.

Rosalind Franklin was not a 1962 laureate. She had died in 1958, and Nobel Prizes were not awarded posthumously under the rules then in force. Her X-ray studies nevertheless made a major contribution to understanding DNA’s structure.