Maurice Wilkins biography 15/6/04. By Georgina Ferry The 'Third Man of the Double Helix'.

Maurice Wilkins, the 'Third Man of the Double Helix', shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA with Francis Crick and James Watson in 1962. A very different personality from either of these two, he has recently overcome his natural reticence in order to give his own account of the DNA story.

Wilkins was born in the outback town of Pongaroa, New Zealand, in 1916. His Irish father was a doctor with an interest in medical research, and in 1922 the family moved to Birmingham in the UK where the research possibilities were greater. Wilkins was educated at King Edward's School before going to St John's College, Cambridge, to study physics.

He transferred to Birmingham University to undertake a PhD under J T Randall, working on phosphorescence. During the World War II he applied his expertise to the development of improved radar screens before moving to work on the separation of radioactive isotopes for use in nuclear bombs. This took him to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos in New Mexico, where he stayed until the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This development so appalled him that he almost gave up science for art, but like many other physicists of the time he read Erwin Schrodinger's 'What Is Life?' and decided to move into biophysics. Randall had by this time set up a biophysics lab at St Andrew's University, which shortly moved to King's College London. Wilkins joined this group and remained at King's College for the rest of his scientific career.

Working with DNA purified from calf thymus by the Swiss scientist Rudolf Signer, in 1950 Wilkins and his graduate student Raymond Gosling obtained the first X-ray photographs of DNA that showed that the long, thin molecule had a regular, crystalline form. It was one of these photographs, shown at a meeting in Naples a year later, that sparked James Watson's interest in DNA. Rosalind Franklin joined Randall's lab in early 1952, having been asked by Randall to work on DNA. Wilkins thought she was coming to be his assistant, while she believed she had been given the whole DNA project, a misunderstanding that led to an irrevocable breakdown in their working relationship.

Biography: Rosalind Franklin

Franklin took a new series of excellent X-ray photographs, one of which Wilkins fatefully showed to James Watson. It provided the vital observation that Watson and Crick needed to complete their theoretical model of the double helical structure of DNA. After 1953 Wilkins continued to work on X-ray studies of DNA, providing further experimental verification for the structure. The contribution of the King's researchers to the discovery was acknowledged when Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize with Watson and Crick (Franklin had died of cancer in 1958).

Biography: Francis Crick

Thereafter Wilkins became increasingly preoccupied with the political position of the scientist in society. He was a founder member of the radical British Society for Social Responsibility in Science, and served as its president from 1979-91, speaking out on issues such as disarmament and international development. At the same time he continued his research in biophysics at King's College, heading the MRC Cell Biophysics Unit from 1974 until 1980. He remains an active member of staff today.

His autobiography, 'The Third Man of the Double Helix' (Oxford University Press), was published in October 2003.