Narrator - Dr. Abel  00:00
Welcome to HelixTalk, an educational podcast for healthcare students and providers, covering real life clinical pearls, professional pharmacy topics and drug therapy discussions.

Narrator - ?  00:11
This podcast is provided by pharmacists and faculty members at Rosalind Franklin University, College of Pharmacy.

Narrator - Dr. Abel  00:17
This podcast contains general information for educational purposes only. This is not professional advice, and should not be used in lieu of obtaining advice from a qualified health care provider.

Narrator - ?  00:27
And now on to the show.

Dr. Sean Kane  00:31
Welcome to HelixTalk episode 123 I'm your co host, Dr. Kane, and I'm Dr. Patel, and the title of today's episode is Dr. Rosalind Franklin beyond photo 51 and today, we are so excited to be interviewing Dr. Rosalind Franklin's niece to celebrate, really, the centennial event of Dr. Rosalind Franklin's life. And we're going to get into that episode, which was recorded separately. And Dr. Patel and I are now providing a little commentary as we provide that audio interview to the audience.

Dr. Khyati Patel  01:03
And really this interview idea was to bring Rosalind Franklin, the niece of Dr. Franklin, to just discuss how, you know, great her life and scientific achievement was, and really beyond what we know in the literature and the science community, what she was truly like, and this is all about celebrating her Centennial event. So we are, we were thrilled to have a conversation with Rosalyn

Dr. Sean Kane  01:31
and for the audience's benefit, Dr. Patel and I are going to interject a couple times during this interview. So when you hear this music, that's just to cue you in that this was recorded separately from the interview itself, and Dr. Patel and I are just kind of adding a little extra for the benefit of the audience. So our guest today is the niece of Dr. Rosalind Franklin, the namesake of our university, who is also named Roslyn franklin. We are absolutely thrilled to have you here today. So thank you so much. Maybe you could just briefly introduce yourself to the audience so that we can get to know you a little bit better of who you are, what you do and why you're here today.

Speaker 1  02:08
So thank you again for inviting me to share some stories on my note about Roslyn, I am fortunate to have been named after my house. I think that's one of my lucky things that I have come to so appreciate I was born two years after she passed away, so my mother was very close to her. Decided to name me Roslyn. I am a coach, an executive coach and consultant. I started my career in building a nonprofit. I built a symphony orchestra. I co founded a symphony orchestra and launched careers of lots of young people and and composers over the years, and then moved into the leadership development realm, and now I'm working with Boyden and international coaching recruitment company, working with people and executives at home and abroad, optimizing the work environment, which is very much akin to what I wish I would have been helpful to Rosalind in her story, when she began her stories and of journey as a scientist in a challenging environment.

Dr. Sean Kane  03:08
And it seems like you've kind of taken on the helm of representing Dr. Rosalind Franklin within the family. Is that correct in terms of your representation with the university, and kind of speaking on her behalf,

Speaker 1  03:21
I would say that I've taken it on in the US, we have a large extended family in England, and in England, they predominantly play that role, but in the US, I'm the only person who does it here and is privileged enough to do it here and and is celebrated. And I should say that in a way, I think Rosalind was recognized here first, more than she was in England, earlier, and given her due, perhaps earlier than in England. So it's wonderful to be able to do that.

Dr. Khyati Patel  03:49
So Roslyn, Dr. Franklin has been obviously, we, as we all know, you know, she's known for her work with DNA, specifically that X ray, crystallography of the DNA, and the photo 51 the image that she took in 1952 probably took 100 plus hours to produce and probably more than a year to analyze it. This photo was then eventually shared with two other scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick, without Dr. Franklin's knowledge or permission, that eventually then led to the DNA double helix structure that we are familiar with today. And her contributions and understanding of DNA were probably not recognized at that time, perhaps not even fully. I still have to, you know, tell audience that I interact with and say, did you know, by the way, but that's the story. If people are familiar with that, they're familiar with. What is it about your aunt's life that people are not familiar with?

Speaker 1  04:46
Well, I appreciate you asking that question, because one of the things I like to do is bring the sort of a holistic picture of Rosalind, who she was, as a woman, as a person, as a sister and a daughter and a friend. Because I. Think we like to glob on to that story of this feminist icon that was wronged and and I think it suits other people's narratives more than it suits Rosalyn. I don't think she would like to be seen in that light. That's not who she was. She was what, who scientists would love as a scientist, scientist. She loved the love the world of science. She loved the betterment that she could add to the betterment of mankind, and that was her goal. And so this narrative that's created around her, I don't think I think she would shun more than accept, but I think what I like to focus on is the woman who who was an alpinist, who was a mycologist, who was a friend who loved the theater. She used to go weekly to the theater with my mother. She was a terrible musician. She didn't so much. There was so much more to her. And I think that we focus on that relationship between Watson and her in the lab, we read so much about that, which sort of portrays her as this very hard, difficult character, and yet, outside, she was fun. She had so many friends, more comfortable in France, I think, than in England. But, you know, her family just had the most wonderful memories of her and all the children. And they were children, so many of her nieces and nephews were really young when she when she passed, just remember with such fondness and how fun she was and so loving, which doesn't come through in the portrayals that we often read about her. So that is where I like to focus. My father has lots of stories about her, in mountains, going on trips with her, in addition to feeling complete non judgment, I think he ran away from school and arrived at her doorstep in Cambridge, and she said she just didn't ask any questions, which, you know, today I think we're in our probing, more probing culture, especially in America. I think that's unusual. And just felt no judgment, and that stuck with him, and he still talks about it, that she was accepting of everyone, and

Dr. Sean Kane  07:01
I think that's such a great thing to think about, because so often any like celebrity, if you will, we just think about what they're known for, right? Like Roslyn franklin is known for her work with DNA, but she did so much more than that, scientifically with gas masks, with viral research and understanding the structure of viruses, let alone the fact that, you know, all of these people are people, right? They're actual people who had lives that have families and things like that. And it's so easy to forget that when you only hear the narrative about this one aspect of their scientific life, that there's so much more to the person than that, right? Absolutely.

Speaker 1  07:36
And I go back to saying, I think it fulfills other people's problems that they're experiencing, and they're able to put that on Look what she went through. That's why it's happening to me. And I think where, as a coach, I see the value and saying, let's not look at it that way. What? What do we need to do in ourselves to make it better for the Zara easier for us in the with the people we are around. And I think that's something that needs to be focused on. That's something that even Rosalyn, you know, just going doggedly through what she needed to do to accomplish what she did. Maybe there was some space there to go about building the relationships differently. May not have been, I can't project that really, but there's always opportunity, even with people that are challenging and difficult, I like to think there's always hope. So I live in hope that things can be shifted. But again, she was in an unusual position, being a woman scientist in a very male dominated world, in a difficult laboratory setting, which the setup of it, and I don't know if we want to talk about that, the setup of it was not set up for success, because if people didn't know who was in charge. But again, that comes down to communication, clarity, asking questions, and those are the things that that I hope rosalind's legacy teaches others.

Dr. Sean Kane  08:53
Rosalyn, I think it's probably worth talking about that, and talking about the structure, the setup that she had at her lab, and how that kind of played a role in the controversy, or kind of what ended up happening professionally with her, and perhaps how, as you said, anyone can learn from her Dr. Franklin's experience and maybe apply that to their own life and their own experience. So could you give us some background in terms of what was that setup that was so problematic that kind of led to some of these issues down the road.

Speaker 1  09:25
Rosalyn came back from France to work at King's. She was invited to come and work on DNA and I. She went in believing this was her opportunity to work in the lab with Maurice Wilkins, side by side. He was doing his work, she was doing hers. But the something behind the scenes was happening, unbeknownst to both of them, which was that the lab had spent that set up to be in sort of collaborative and what Wilkins thinking she was coming into work for him, and that really was the foundational beginning, because as an independent thinker, an independent woman. Who was excited to do the work the way she wanted to do the work, when somebody was looking over her shoulder and saying, What are you doing? What are you doing? And she turns around says, I'm doing my work. Leave me alone. It's not your business. That all starts to create a relationship foundationally set up on the wrong footing, and I think that that's without going into all the details that just that. And I look at it as a leadership opportunity. They set up a situation where you can set up people for success or not, and they were not set up to do this well, and then it never got settled and never got addressed. And so again, if we don't address things, we don't talk about things, we don't have clarity, we don't have good communication. Things fester, and then the story begins to take hold, which is a narrative now that lives on. So I think there's a lesson to be learned on so many levels. Firstly, you can ask questions, if you're in the position of, how do we get here? That's one place one could go. The other is, don't set up people in a way that's not going to make them successful. So it's both from both ends. I think there were mistakes that were made.

Dr. Khyati Patel  11:09
And Rosa, I think you're absolutely right when you say that we have a lesson to learn from that. And you being a coach, you know, leadership coach. And hopefully, what we're looking at years since that incident happened, or maybe more, that we have learned something, and there's better opportunities for communication, leadership, transparency, clarity, understanding all that stuff, and that being said, there is more opportunity for women scientists men scientists, doesn't matter, to have better collaboration and make sure that their work is brought to the light, rather than these controversies more so like it

Dr. Sean Kane  11:47
so Dr. Patel, you know, in the interview with Rosalyn, we didn't have an opportunity to really go into some of the science behind photo 51 and really what was so extraordinary about that knowledge in terms of how it eventually led to our better understanding of the genome. You know, in researching this episode, I thought it was fascinating what was known at the time about heredity and how genes were passed on. It actually wasn't thought at the time that DNA was the thing that made you you, which I thought was fascinating. Can you maybe tell a little bit more to the audience about what we knew at the time. This is 1940s 1950s Absolutely.

Dr. Khyati Patel  12:25
Dr. Kane, you know, if you were to tell me what we knew in 1940s and 50s about, you know, the life, the code of the life, where it resides, you and I teaching pharmacogenomics right now, would be like, You're kidding us, right. But to the audience, you know, up until the 1940s and 50s, scientists thought protein was the thing that held the code for life, the argument was that there's only four base pairs in the DNA, and how could only four base pairs hold the code for life? And so we believed, back in those days that proteins were the ones that held life code and not the DNA. And I

Dr. Sean Kane  13:06
think it's so easy to take for granted now, you know, Dr. Patel and I, you and I were educated, really, in the 21st Century, right in terms of our understanding of genetic code and the genome, and we just take it for granted that DNA is what makes your genome, your genome, right? But at the time, that wasn't understood, and that's one of the really pivotal mile markers in terms of our understanding of genomics, is that it was DNA and not protein, that made up us. And photo 51 and Dr. Franklin's work on DNA was pivotal in our understanding of that. And I think that's fantastic, and something that goes under appreciated by people like unfortunately, you and I that we just take it for granted, because that's how we were brought up. We weren't brought up in an era of something different.

Dr. Khyati Patel  13:50
That's absolutely right. And you know, it takes me back to what was that early, 2000s when the human code typing was completed, like it was a big deal. And if you really think about it, how Rosalind said, you know, the new discoveries are held on the shoulder of, you know, previous scientists and discoverers, right? And so really, that was a big moment in the human history, and kind that we broke into this human life code. But really it came from her pivotal work. But something tells me Dr. Kane that you know, on the surface, this is what Dr. Franklin was known for, DNA, genome, photo, 51 but she she's done quite a bit more research for the science for viruses and gas masks and stuff, and I know you've done extensive review over this. So would you like to share something about her work outside of the DNA and the genome?

Dr. Sean Kane  14:46
Sure, and this is definitely something that is under appreciated, because her work with DNA is so well known that some of her other work kind of flies under the radar a little bit. So you know, before her work with DNA at King's College, with photo 51, she actually did a lot of early work with coal, and that sounds kind of weird that she would be studying coal and then move on to DNA, but it dealt with the fact that she was really good at X ray crystallography and kind of understanding the structure of very, very small things. So her work with coal really led to the discovery, or the appreciation that within coal, the amount of carbon content and the density of the coal itself actually had a huge impact on permeability of things like gases and liquid through that coal. And the reason that that was relevant is that this was important in helping to design gas masks that used coal and carbon based filters to help filter out more harmful gases, which was extremely relevant, especially in World War One, where harmful gasses were commonly used as a weapon of war. Interestingly, that she was studying coal, and that eventually led to improvements in the coal, if you will, that was used in these gas masks, right?

Dr. Khyati Patel  16:02
And I think this was the, this was the work that she contributed for the war, like she, know her her father had wanted her to help out with and she didn't want to help out directly, but this is her way of scientifically helping out the war, exactly.

Dr. Sean Kane  16:16
You know, after her work on DNA, when she left King's College, then she really focused on viruses and understanding the structure of viruses, and she's most well known for the tobacco mosaic virus, or TMV, but she also did work analyzing the structure of other viruses, including human viruses like the polio virus. And, you know, just as an example with TMV, her work led to the understanding that it was structurally, basically a hollow tube with a single strand of RNA inside that hollow tube. And obviously that kind of understanding then led to further understanding this kind of ripple effect of how other virus structures are comprised, and things like that. So, you know, it wasn't just DNA that she contributed in her very short scientific career, she had a lot of other stuff that has really led to a broader scientific understanding that I think does go under appreciated.

Dr. Khyati Patel  17:10
I want to go back to the values we discussed earlier that she held and you know, we can't take away the gravity of the importance of photo 51 and we want to know a little bit about her earlier educational opportunities that she had that kind of led her to be successful in taking that photo 51

Speaker 1  17:31
so I think that's I think that's a good question. Also, I think we, we have self limiting beliefs often, which we adhere to. She didn't have any. She didn't know that she couldn't do whatever she wanted to do. She was raised in an environment with very strong women, very strong role models. They all around her. Achieved a variety of things, whether it was in a charitable situation, they led the charities. If they were doing some things in government, they were leading so they were leaders on so many levels. Even if they didn't have those prominent positions. They were strong role models. And I don't think she was ever raised thinking that she couldn't do whatever she wanted to do, which is also why, when people would question it, she think, why are they asking me, you know, why are you questioning why do this? Or what if I should be doing something else? This is what I want to do. When her father wanted her to be part of the war effort. This was the way she felt, that being part of the war effort was most beneficial, not joining him in his efforts. She was independent. And you can go and look and see some of these things that Roslyn had when she was very young that really served her well in that that that extreme attention to detail and the fastidiousness and the tenacity, and that's another big piece of it, because she was a human computer, and those calculations we didn't have couldn't press buttons in those days, right? So that she the fact that she could sit for hours and hours and hours, not everybody can do that. Takes a special kind of mind, a special kind of person and character. So all these things I think, are integral to help her become who she was, and with a supportive family who really mostly didn't understand what she was doing. And my father will always say that he so impressed that she never talked science, really, because she knew nobody would really understand it. So with him, they had so many other things they would talk about, but it really wasn't the realm of science.

Dr. Sean Kane  19:22
Rosalyn, I want to extend on that a little bit. There's a great book by Malcolm Gladwell called outliers, and it talks about, you know, what makes someone extraordinary, right? Part of the theme of that book is certain people, they have these personality traits like you're talking about. They have this drive, they have this intellect, but they also have kind of an unfair advantage. There's something about their upbringing or an environment that allows them to have this unique ability or unique opportunity that many other people don't have. Examples could include hockey players based on what month they. Are born, allows them to be bigger in their age category. Or many of the tech entrepreneurs, like Bill Gates that he had access to computers that many other people in his kind of age bracket didn't have access to at the time. Did Dr. Franklin have some kind of unfair advantage in her environment? Or is her success as a scientist largely attributed to the fact that she was really smart and had this incredible drive. Was there something else there that maybe other people don't know about?

Speaker 1  20:28
It's a really interesting question that nobody has asked before, and I haven't spent much time thinking about that, but instinctively I say, No, I think she came from a privileged family. She was not hurting for educational opportunities. So that's I will say, that's a given, of an advantage that is inherent in the family she was born into. She didn't have family that could talk to her about science and educate her in that realm, she may have access to people I'm not, I'm not sure that I could say that she did. I actually sometimes go the other way and think that while Watson had this drive to win this, this race to the discovery of DNA, had she not been a woman, perhaps would she have taken the risks that a man might afford himself, given that, if she failed, would she be given another chance, whereas Watson sort of leapt into the arena, sort of, we're going to go for it because maybe there was a real or perceived cushion that I'll be able to come back from wherever I wherever I land. And do women always have that luxury, and I look at it in the world of entrepreneurship today and say, Do women take less risks? Are they less wanting to go out and go for it themselves, and take those leaps of faith, or in a way that a man might think differently and be more prone to saying, we'll try it if it fails, okay, I'll get more investors. We know that women have more difficulty getting investors. We know that the VCs are not so favorable, and we're trying to change all those things, and they're important. And same with women in science. So is there sort of an unfair advantage that she had to be doggedly more tenacious and persistent than a man might have. So I'm not sure I see that as an advantage. One could then flip it and say it forces you to do more diligent work that made these extraordinary photographs and gave the photo 51 the clarity it did, because she didn't settle for anything less than perfection.

Dr. Sean Kane  22:45
I think that's a great point, and probably given that, yeah, she had an environment where she had access to education, for example, but so did many of her colleagues and peers and things like that. I think it's that much more amazing what she was able to do given that she was a woman and that she didn't have this extraordinary, very unique access to something that other people didn't have at the time. So I think that that, again, to your point, makes her story that much more incredible to think about and talk about and celebrate. So Dr. Patel, just to kind of interject a little bit here, you know, there's so much that can be discussed about Dr. Franklin as a woman in the 1950s but even today, that is still a very hot topic in terms of women in science and some of the difficulties that women can have that men don't have. And as Rosalind Franklin, the niece, was talking about how this was actually a disadvantage to Dr. Franklin at the time, as opposed to any advantage that she had. What are your thoughts on this in terms of women in science and and just generally speaking, how being a woman scientist is in this era versus in the 1950s

Dr. Khyati Patel  23:55
Yeah, you know, it was fascinating to hear Rosalyn say that, you know, had she not had fear of failing. Would she have taken another step? Would she have been the Watson and Crick to discover that he like structure and not just stop at photo 51 and I think you know time and again, it takes me back to who I am as a as a pharmacist, scientist, you know, whatever you want to call it, educator in this world, you do have this immense pressure of proving yourself right, you know, not making a mistake. You're always trying to be perfect before you take a leap. And there is this great TED talk out there. It talks about Girls Who Code. And, you know, there is this CEO of that organization who is really promoting girls to start coding, you know, and kind of showing them it's okay to fail, you know, it's okay to not be perfect, but take a leap into something, take the risk, and that's the fundamental change we want to have in this society today, if you really want to, you know, elevate women. To bring them to the same power level is to raise them to be brave and risk takers and not raise them to be perfectionist. And I think what Rosalyn said in general about women in science, women in leadership, that really resonated with me too. And you know, I can't undo how I practice and what I believe for myself, but having a little daughter, I definitely think that that's going to turn the way I raise her, and the you know, the way I instill the beliefs in her.

Dr. Sean Kane  25:29
Dr. Franklin died of ovarian cancer when she was only 37 and really wasn't able to see her work with DNA come to full fruition in terms of what we have now, which is essentially the commercialization of DNA. We have knowledge of the human genome. We have pharmacogenomics, we have DNA testing that you can do in the comfort of your own home and then look it up on a smartphone. That's insane. So, you know, could you talk a little bit about how a listener might reflect on their own work and how their own work kind of has this rippling effect, right? So 70 years ago now, she was working on DNA, and over a period of many decades, her photo 51 her work with DNA, has now rippled into this commercialization and this whole industry and this whole knowledge base that she probably couldn't have even fathomed at the time. So maybe could you talk to us about how the listeners might reflect on that with their own work as well?

Speaker 1  26:26
Well everything? I think I when I talk about Rosalind, often I say we stand upon the shoulders of others that came before. So she built her work on DNA based on what had come before, that too, right? So there were people been working on looking at the DNA for a long time, but she was building on that. But I think when I come let's come back to the university for which you represent, and this podcast is comes from, is this collaborative environment. It's the interdisciplinary approach. And I was thinking about this earlier, that if we have, I want to share the holistic person that Roslyn was, we have holistic bodies. Our bodies are not, you know, our limbs are not separate. Everything's connected. So if you're working in one realm of healthcare, that may be just your little area, but it feeds into the whole because we're looking at not when we look at in part of healthcare, we're looking at a part of a whole body and how they intersect, and so the collaboration, so it comes back to this sort of being connected to everything, and that you everything you do has an effect on someone else, whether it's relationship, whether it's healthcare, whether it's communication. That I think there is, there is this constant feeding out of what you do, what rosalyn's story, in so many ways, has ripple effects. It's not just her discoveries. Her own story inspires young women scientists. It inspires young girls. It inspires to think how we do things differently. There's so many tentacles from one little place that you can go, which I think is is the beautiful part. And I think that the Rosalind Franklin University is emblematic. And I think why the family feels connected and supportive and so grateful that it's the university represents her in that way, because it is the sort of looking at everything in a holistic way, looking to be built on each other and with each other, to address a system, and in this case, it's self care.

Dr. Khyati Patel  28:29
And I think what you just said, Rosalyn, kind of ties back to who she was as a person. She you know, she was a true scientist. She cared for the science, the she cared for the discovery, she didn't really care for whether I do this job. You know, am I going to get fame out of it? Right? She, she didn't care for any of that. That's why she was no nonsense. You know, business oriented, science oriented person. And I think somebody like that truly embodies the word karma. We call it, right? And, and I come from Hindu religion and where karma is, basically, you do your work and you don't worry about the result. You know, as long as you're doing the right work, you let the world figure it out. What's going to happen of that? And that's what happened with Robin Franklin's work, is she discovered this photo, and like you said, you know, all the possible discoveries thereafter have been on her shoulders. Have been on that discovery that she has made, she would have never thought, you know, all those years ago, that that's the implication of her research and her finding. And probably she didn't care at that point either. She was just so dedicated to science.

Speaker 1  29:34
And I think it's a shame that it comes down to these things. And I think there's these the pressure on getting your name recognition and being first, and I see it in the startup world, right? You know, if you haven't made your millions by 25 What's wrong with you? And it is such an unnatural, unhealthy state. So to have that, I mean, I was astonished, because if you know that there's a rover going to. Uh Mars, named in her named after Roslyn, that will be launched in 2022 from the European Space Agency. And I was very fortunate to be able to go and meet with the scientists. And what struck me the most is that they've been planning this for 20 years, and this idea that people did something with a result that wouldn't show up till later. You know, I thought, how do you stick with something? We're not used to that today. We want instant gratification, whether it's on our phones, whether it's in and we want results, results, results. And we, you know, everybody says, what's the result? What's What do you get? What do you get? And that is so counter to what Robson would have needed to make this discovery. And so there's a lesson there that sometimes it's not instant. It takes time to get what can be life changing, world changing. And that's worth remembering for somebody who's in this pressure cooker and really sees it differently and say, Stay your path. You don't need to bend. You don't need to bend to the pressure. If you think you know you're doing the right thing, stay with it no matter what, because I think that's very hard for young people old people, but it gets easier with age to stay your course while the pressures are mounting around you, to do something different when you believe that you are doing the right thing. And Rosalyn would not have made the discovery had she been actually quite a couple.

Dr. Khyati Patel  31:29
And I think you you summarized it really well, because our next question was, you know, how do you think our listeners can relate to Roslyn franklin story? And that's true. Stay, of course, don't bend to the pressure. Do the right thing. And I think that's a great message. Thank you.

Speaker 1  31:46
And I think I would like to add, create your own story and your own narrative, otherwise other people will make it for you. So you make sure the message you want conveyed is the one you want to be told, don't let other people tell your story.

Dr. Sean Kane  31:59
I love that. I think that's such a good message and a really good opportunity to kind of wrap things up today. So Rosalyn, thank you so much for your time. Dr. Patel and I really appreciate everything that you've been able to bring to the audience and celebrate Dr. Franklin's life with us. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you,

Speaker 1  32:16
and thank you for honoring my aunt in 100 centennial. Thank you so much.

Dr. Sean Kane  32:23
So I think that wraps up today's episode so well and again. Thank you so much to Rosalind Franklin for providing her background and expertise on the topic today. If you want to see show notes from today's episode, including a link to the university's centennial celebration website, visit us at HelixTalk.com again. This is episode 123 For show notes in that link, we are also on Twitter at HelixTalk, and we love the five star reviews in iTunes, so keep those coming. So with that, I'm Dr. Kane

Dr. Khyati Patel  32:51
and I'm Dr. Patel, and as always, work and study hard.

Narrator - Dr. Abel  32:56
If you enjoyed the show, please help us climb the iTunes rankings for medical podcasts by giving us a five star review in the iTunes Store, search for HelixTalk and place your review there to

Narrator - ?  33:07
suggest an episode or contact us. We're online at HelixTalk.com thank you for listening to this episode of HelixTalk. This is an educational production copyright Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.