Maurice Wilkins
Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins was born at Pongaroa, New Zealand, on 15 December 1916. At the age of 6, Wilkins was brought to England and educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham. He studied physics at St John's College, Cambridge, taking his degree in 1938. He then went to Birmingham University, where he became research assistant studying the luminescence of solids. He obtained a PhD in 1940, his thesis being mainly on a study of thermal stability of trapped electrons in phosphors, and on the theory of phosphorescence, in terms of electron traps with continuous distribution of trap depths. He then applied these ideas to various war-time problems such as improvement of cathode-ray tube screens for radar. Next he worked on mass spectrograph separation of uranium isotopes for use in bombs and, shortly after, moved on to the Manhattan Project in Berkeley, California, where these studies continued.

In 1945, after the war, he became a lecturer in physics at St Andrews' University, Scotland. He had spent seven years in physics research and now began in biophysics. The biophysics project moved in 1946 to King's College, London, where he was a member of the staff of the newly formed Medical Research Council Biophysics Research Unit. He was first concerned with genetic effects of ultrasonics, but later changed his research to the development of reflecting microscopes for ultraviolet microspectrophotometric study of nucleic acids in cells. He also studied the orientation of purines and pyrimidines in tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and in nucleic acids, the arrangement of virus particles in crystals of TMV, and measured dry mass in cells with interference microscopes.

Wilkins then began X-ray diffraction studies of DNA and sperm heads. The discovery of the well-defined patterns led to the deriving of the molecular structure of DNA. Further X-ray studies established the correctness of the Watson-Crick proposal for DNA structure.

Wilkins became Assistant Director of the Medical Research Council Unit in 1950, Deputy Director in 1955 and Director from 1970 unitl 1972. He continues to work at King's College.

image: © The Nobel Foundation