The forgotten scientist of History

Marie Benedict, La ragazza  del microscopio
[The Girl with the Microscope], Piemme 2024

This novel, which I came across by chance, recounts the story of Rosalind Franklin, a British scientist, chemist, and expert in crystallography. In the 1950s, she was the only one able to capture an X-ray image of the DNA molecule, the famous Photo 51, and became the first person in the world to witness, incredulous, the appearance of a double-helix structure. This discovery would forever change the course of scientific history, which she summarized in several articles published in Nature magazine. However, history consigned her to oblivion, associated with her premature death at just 38 years old due to ovarian cancer, partly caused by overexposure to X-rays. The ones, who became famous for the discovery, even winning the Nobel Prize in 1962, were James Watson and Francis Crick, along with geneticist Maurice Wilkins, who improperly appropriated Franklin’s work without giving her any credit. Only through the careful analysis of Rosalind Franklin’s personal and scientific journey, conducted by her friend and fellow researcher Anne Sayre, have we been able to learn the truth and recognize the rightful value of her immense discovery.

#sistersproject

Rosa Lupoli is a Capuchin nun from Naples and abbess of the monastery of Santa Maria in Gerusalemme, also known as the Monastery of the Thirty-Three, founded by Blessed Maria Lorenza Longo.