Who is Maurice Wilkins?
Continued work on DNA and subsequent
career
Wilkins
later collaborated with Leonard Hamilton and others to confirm the double
helix hypothesis, using samples of the molecule from many different
sources, including human cells, to demonstrate that the basic model
of the molecule remains the same throughout living creatures. Together
with Watson and Crick, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in
1962 in recognition of the groundbreaking studies of a decade earlier.
Wilkins was Deputy Director of the Biophysics Unit, 1955-1970, and subsequently
Director until 1980. During this time he was appointed Professor of
Biophysics, 1970-1981, and was instrumental in the establishment of
a Department of Biophysics at King’s and the relocation of the
Unit to new laboratories in Drury Lane. He was made Emeritus Professor
of Biophysics in 1981 and has retained a keen interest in the teaching
and research of biophysics at King’s and more generally in the
ethics of science.
