Maurice Wilkins Biography

Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins was a British (born in New Zealand) biophysicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for producing the first image of DNA fibers. His research constituted mainly of optical microscopy, separation of isotopes, x-ray diffraction, and phosphorescence. He helped in the improvement of radar screens used in the Second World War to detect enemy aircraft approaching the coast of England. He worked in the Manhattan project for some time but later changed over to biophysics. His specialization during the work at the Manhattan project was in spectroscopic separation of uranium isotopes. He soon lost interest in helping create weapons of mass destruction and instead changed over to doing research on biophysics. His discovery contributed to the double-helix model suggested by Crick and Watson in 1953. He and another scientist named Rosalind Franklin provided the secondary research to the double helix theory suggested by experiments carried out by the scientists James D. Watson and Francis Crick which became the basis of further research on the structure of DNA. He shared the Nobel Prize with Watson and Crick as Franklin had died in 1958. He went on to do more work on genetics which included several experiments on RNA.