Raymond George Gosling (15 July 1926 – 18 May 2015) was a British scientist. While a PhD student at
King's College, London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King G ...
he worked under the supervision of
Maurice Wilkins
Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins (15 December 1916 – 5 October 2004) was a New Zealand-born British biophysicist and Nobel laureate whose research spanned multiple areas of physics and biophysics, contributing to the scientific understanding ...
and
Rosalind Franklin
Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 192016 April 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, ...
. The
crystallographic
Crystallography is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids. Crystallography is a fundamental subject in the fields of materials science and solid-state physics (condensed matter physics). The wor ...
experiments of Franklin and Gosling, together with others by Wilkins, produced data that helped
James Watson
James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick a ...
and
Francis Crick
Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical stru ...
to infer the structure of
DNA.
Early years
He was born in 1926 and attended school in Wembley. He studied physics at
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
from 1944 to 1947 and became a hospital physicist at the King's Fund and Middlesex Hospital between 1947 and 1949 before joining
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
as a research student, from which he eventually received his PhD.
Career
Work at King's College London and DNA
When he arrived at
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
, Gosling was directed by
Sir John Randall to work on the problem of the structure of DNA. Randall was convinced that DNA was the material which transmitted the genetic code.
Randall assigned him to work on X-ray diffraction with Maurice Wilkins, analysing samples of DNA which they prepared by hydrating and drawing out into thin filaments and photographing in a hydrogen atmosphere.
He made the first x-ray diffraction image of crystallized DNA. His comment on this discovery was "I must be the first person ever to make genes crystallize",
although he was probably unaware of the prior work of
Florence Bell.
After the initial work producing the first x-ray diffraction of DNA, Randall reassigned Gosling to work with Rosalind Franklin, who had been just hired to join King's College in 1951. He did this without consulting with Wilkins, a factor which may have contributed to the animosity between the two.
During the next two years, the pair worked closely together to perfect the technique of X-ray diffraction photography of DNA and obtained at the time the sharpest diffraction images of
DNA. They produced the first X-ray diffraction photographs of the "wet form B" (B-DNA) paracrystalline arrays of highly hydrated DNA. In 1952 Gosling made the best X-ray diffraction image of DNA known as ''
Photo 51 '
''Photo 51'' is an X-ray based fiber diffraction image of a paracrystalline gel composed of DNA fiber taken by Raymond Gosling, a graduate student working under the supervision of Rosalind Franklin in May 1952 at King's College London, wh ...
''.
This piece of evidence helped
Francis Crick
Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical stru ...
and
James D. Watson to decipher the correct chemical structure. Crick, Watson and Wilkins shared the 1962
Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine on discoveries of nucleic acid structure. Gosling was the co-author with Franklin of one of the three DNA double helix papers published in ''
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
'' in April 1953. Gosling was not recognized by the Nobel Committee and Franklin had died four years before.
When Franklin left King's College, Gosling was reassigned back to work with Wilkins, with whom he formally completed his thesis work. After the first ''Nature'' article on the x-ray diffraction results leading to the double helix model, he and Franklin (who had by that time left King's College) followed up their DNA x-ray analysis with a second article in ''Nature''.
His other King's colleagues included
Alex Stokes
Alexander Rawson Stokes (27 June 1919 – 6 February 2003) was a British physicist at Royal Holloway College, London and later at King's College London. He was most recognised as a co-author of the second of the three papers published sequent ...
and
Herbert Wilson
Herbert Rees Wilson FRSE (20 March 1929 – 22 May 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.
Biography Early life
He was born the son ...
.
Work following Kings College
Gosling briefly remained at King's College following the completion of his thesis in 1954, but the 1953 work on DNA structure was not, at the time, viewed with the importance it now has achieved, and following his Ph.D., Gosling found no opportunity to continue at King's, although he would have liked to do so.
Gosling went on to lecture in physics at Queen's College,
University of St Andrews
(Aien aristeuein)
, motto_lang = grc
, mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best
, established =
, type = Public research university
Ancient university
, endowment ...
in Scotland, and then found a long-term position at the
University of the West Indies
The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the ...
.
For a few years he continued with crystallography research, focusing on analysis of the structure of nucleotides, but then shifted toward research in the field of
medical physics
Medical physics deals with the application of the concepts and methods of physics to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases with a specific goal of improving human health and well-being. Since 2008, medical physics has been incl ...
, working on designing equipment to study and diagnose atherosclerosis.
Work at Guy's Hospital
He returned to the UK in 1967 and became Lecturer and Reader at
Guy's Hospital
Guy's Hospital is an NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in central London. It is part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and one of the institutions that comprise the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre.
...
Medical School, and Professor and Emeritus Professor in Physics Applied to Medicine from 1984. Here he helped develop the underlying basic medical science and technology for
haemodynamic
Hemodynamics or haemodynamics are the dynamics of blood flow. The circulatory system is controlled by homeostatic mechanisms of autoregulation, just as hydraulic circuits are controlled by control systems. The hemodynamic response continuousl ...
doppler ultrasound
Doppler ultrasonography is medical ultrasonography that employs the Doppler effect to perform imaging of the movement of tissues and body fluids (usually blood), and their relative velocity to the probe. By calculating the frequency shift of a ...
vascular assessment in the Non Invasive Angiology Group, and set up the clinical Ultrasonic
Angiology Unit.
[ ]
Abstract
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Gosling served on numerous committees of the University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...
, notably relating to radiological science, and retained an active professional involvement in medical physics
Medical physics deals with the application of the concepts and methods of physics to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases with a specific goal of improving human health and well-being. Since 2008, medical physics has been incl ...
almost to the end of his life.
Personal background
Gosling and his wife Mary had four sons, the eldest of whom is the furniture designer Tim Gosling
Timothy Job Gosling (born 23 August 1966) is a British furniture designer based in London. ''The Sunday Times'' has described him as "designer to the rich and famous".
Background
Gosling was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1966. His father was s ...
. Raymond Gosling died at the age of 88 on 18 May 2015.[Professor Raymond Gosling](_blank)
''The Times,'' May 20, 2015.
References
External links
Detailed interview 2013 in ''Genome Biology''
Interview
in CSH Oral History
Raymond Gosling in The King's story
jointly developed by Dr. B.A. Coghlan and Prof. R.G. Gosling's Blood Flow Group at the Physics Dept., Guy's Hospital Medical School, London. These early devices were used for haemodynamic assessment of normal volunteers and assessment of patients with peripheral vascular disease
Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is an abnormal narrowing of arteries other than those that supply the heart or brain. When narrowing occurs in the heart, it is called coronary artery disease, and in the brain, it is called cerebrovascular dise ...
. The work reflects a close and extensive collaboration with Dr. M.G. Taylor.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gosling, Raymond
1926 births
2015 deaths
British physicists
British scientists
Alumni of the University of London
Alumni of University College London
Alumni of King's College London
Academics of the University of St Andrews
Academics of King's College London
Fellows of King's College London
University of the West Indies academics