Herbert Wilson

Professor Herbert R. Wilson, FRS (1929 —2008) was a physicist, who was one of the team who worked on the structure of DNA at King's College London, under the direction of Sir John Randall. On a fellowship of the University of Wales, Herbert R. Wilson joined Maurice Wilkins at King's College London in September 1952. The work involved X-ray diffraction studies of DNA, nucleoproteins and cell nuclei. Prior to the double helix model, their studies showed that DNAs from different sources (including biologically active transforming principle) had essentially the same structure, and confirmed that the phosphate groups were on the outside of the molecule. Three papers were published in Nature, April 1953, to announce a structure for DNA....