Rosalind Elsie Franklin (Born: London, England, July 25, 1920- Died: London, England, April 16, 1958) – Pioneer Molecular Biologist
There is probably no other woman scientist with as much controversy surrounding her life and work as Rosalind Franklin. Franklin was responsible for much of the research and discovery work that led to the understanding of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA. The story of DNA is a tale of competition and intrigue, told one way in James Watson’s book The Double Helix, and quite another in Anne Sayre’s study, Rosalind Franklin and DNA. James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins received a Nobel Prize for the double-helix model of DNA in 1962, four years after Franklin’s death at age 37 from ovarian cancer.
Source: http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/franklin.html
Her biography is riveting, so many things happened to her in her short life, yet she persevered to become one of the many people who were involved in the discovery of DNA!