Herbert R. Wilson | |
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 Wilson with the double helix A-DNA molecular model | |
| Born | (1929-03-20)20 March 1929 |
| Died | 22 May 2008(2008-05-22) (aged 79) Stirling, Scotland |
| Alma mater | Bangor University |
| Awards | Fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics andbiophysics |
| Institutions | King's College London, Queen's College at theUniversity of Dundee,University of St. Andrews,University of Stirling |
Herbert Rees WilsonFRSE (20 March 1929 – 22 May 2008) was a physicist, who was one of the team who worked on the structure ofDNA atKing's College London, under the direction ofSir John Randall.
He was born the son of a sea captain at Nefyn on theLlŷn Peninsula and educated at Nefyn school and Pwllheli Grammar School. He enteredBangor University, where he gained a first class honours degree in physics in 1949 and a PhD in 1952 under the supervision of Professor Edwin Owen.[2]
Having received aUniversity of Wales fellowship, Wilson joinedMaurice Wilkins atKing's College London in September 1952. The work involvedX-ray diffraction studies ofDNA,nucleoproteins andcell nuclei. Prior to thedouble helixmodel, 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. Maurice Wilkins,Alex Stokes and Wilson published their paper in the same issue as the paper fromRosalind Franklin andRaymond Gosling, and the paper byFrancis Crick andJames Watson. The 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was subsequently jointly awarded to Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins.
In his autobiographyThe Third Man of The Double Helix, Maurice Wilkins does not specifically credit Stokes, Wilson and several other co-authors of his papers inNature.[3][4] Whether this was deliberate on his part or just rather poor sub-editing by OUP is debatable. It is most likely to have been a matter of expedience, as there were more than five co-authors on several of his later papers on the subject published inNature or, later, in theJournal of Molecular Biology.[5][6][7][8] Nevertheless, both he and Alex Stokes are now recognized atKing's College as two of the eight key researchers that contributed to the discovery of the structure of theA-DNA crystalline structure.
Following the publication of the double helical structure in 1953, Wilson participated in the refinement of the DNA structure in Wilkins' group. In 1957 Wilson was appointed as a lecturer in physics at Queen's College, Dundee, then part of theUniversity of St Andrews and as a senior lecturer in 1964. Queen's College became theUniversity of Dundee in 1967, and in 1973 he was appointed reader in physics by the university. In 1962 he was visiting research associate at the Children's Cancer Research Foundation, Boston, Massachusetts. In 1983 he was appointed professor of physics at theUniversity of Stirling from which he retired as emeritus professor in 1994. His research at Dundee and Stirling has involved X-ray crystallographic studies of nucleic acid components and their analogues, and structural studies of flexuous viruses. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by theUniversity of Wales, Bangor in 2005. In 1975 he was elected aFellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
As a Welshman Herbert was honoured in 2003 at theNational Eisteddfod in Wales by being given the official white robe of theGorsedd of Bards.
After suffering from terminal cancer, Wilson died on 22 May 2008. He was survived by his wife, two daughters, and two grandchildren; his son Neil predeceased him in 1996.
DNA structure research atKing's College London 1947–1959 | ||
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