Month: June 2022

It was only a couple of weeks ago that physicist Florence Bell had a seminar room named in her honour when the new Bragg building was opened at the University of Leeds. Now, thanks to an interview for the ‘Naked Scientists’ podcast she’s just made it onto BBC radio. At this rate, this once unsung heroine of the DNA story, won’t be quite so unsung any more – and that’s no bad thing.

There’s plenty more about Bell in the new revised edition of my book ‘The Man in the Monkeynut Coat’ which is due to be released in paperback on 2nd Aug. But in the meantime, click here to find out more about how the ‘housewife’ with X-ray vision helped to pave the way for the discovery of the double-helix…

Well, according to a hilarious misprint in one undergraduate biochemistry textbook, at least. But for the real story of the discovery of insulin and the tale of monstrous egos and toxic career rivalries behind it, check out ‘100 Years of Insulin’ – a talk given to the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society (14th June 2022).

With a Royal Mail commemorative stamp, an award winning portrayal by actress Nicole Kidman in a recent hit West End play, and a Mars rover named in her honour, scientist Rosalind Franklin whose X-ray studies were crucial to unravelling the double-helical structure of DNA, thankfully, no longer quite the unsung heroine of the DNA story that she once was.

Until very recently, I would have argued that this title should now pass to physicist Florence Bell who, whilst working at the University of Leeds in 1938, showed for the first time that X-ray methods could be used to reveal the regular, ordered structure of DNA. In so doing, Bell paved the way for Franklin’s later work but she’s been largely forgotten by history…until now…

For when the new Bragg building was officially opened earlier this week for the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds, UK, I was delighted that Florence Bell was honoured with a seminar room named after her. Not quite a Mars rover yet – but a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step…