One of New Zealand's greatest scientists dies aged 88

11.20am


New Zealand scientist Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins, hailed as an unsung hero of DNA research, has died in London. He was 87.

Though he was not widely known in New Zealand, Professor Wilkins was possibly the most influential person born here since Lord Rutherford.

Together with other scientists from Britain and the United States he is credited with discovering the structure of DNA -- the building block of human life.

Their work revolutionised biology, paving the way for huge breakthroughs in many walks of life -- from the development of vaccines and screening of embryos for conditions such as spina bifida, to DNA profiling of criminals, to more controversial developments such as cloning, genetic modification, and medical research on human stem cells.

Professor Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1962 with two other scientists -- though in controversial circumstances when he effectively gave away the work of another colleague.

Professor Wilkins was born in 1916 in Pongaroa, a tiny settlement in northern Wairarapa. His Dublin-born father, Edwin, was the local doctor. The family moved to Pahiatua and then to Wellington when he was still a baby.

When Professor Wilkins was six years old the family went to live in London, where his father wanted to pursue medical studies. Though he never returned, he retained a lifelong love of New Zealand. He later said he always regarded himself as a New Zealander and regarded his years in Wellington -- "living in paradise" -- as the happiest of his life.

In an interview with Television New Zealand's 60 Minutes programme in 1997, he broke down and cried when asked if he would like more recognition from the country he was born in.

Professor Wilkins went to school in Birmingham before gaining a degree from Cambridge in 1938 and a doctorate in physics from Birmingham University in 1940, for work on radars. For two years, he worked on the Manhattan Project in which the United States developed the first atomic bombs.

"After the war I wondered what I would do, as I was very disgusted with the dropping of two bombs on civilian centres in Japan," he told Britain's Encounter radio programme in 1999.

Though he was connected to the bomb research programme he described his work as "on the sidelines". He wrote in the visitors' book at Hiroshima that his work didn't contribute to the bomb.

After the war, he worked as a physics lecturer at St Andrew's University, before being hired as a professor at King's College, London.

Looking for an area of work that -- as he told Encounter -- was "less likely to lead to undesirable applications" than the Manhattan Project, he began putting his expertise towards using x-rays to produce photographs of DNA molecules -- effectively pioneering the new scientific field biophysics. In 1950, he produced the world's first pictures of DNA.

His images, together with those of another physicist also working at King's, Rosalind Franklin, led to the discovery by American geneticist James Watson and English biophysicist Francis Crick of the "double helix" structure of DNA and confirmation that DNA carried life's hereditary information.

The discovery was so important Crick announced to friends afterwards: "We have found the secret of life."

Professor Wilkins' relationship with Franklin was controversial. She had been hired while he was overseas in 1951, also to work on producing x-ray images of DNA. When he returned, he assumed she was to be his assistant.

The relationship never recovered from that poor start. He reportedly disliked the feminist Franklin, and the feeling was mutual. Professor Wilkins admitted they argued, and believed Franklin didn't fit into the "abnormal" laboratory they worked in.

Though Professor Wilkins had a head start, Franklin is widely regarded as having produced far better images of DNA than his.

Professor Wilkins showed Watson one of Franklin's best pictures before it had been published.

"The instant I saw the pictures my mouth fell open," Watson later recalled, indicating the pictures had filled in the vital clues allowing him to understand DNA's structure.

In 1953, Watson and Crick caused a scientific sensation when they unveiled DNA's double helix structure to the world.

Franklin's notes later showed she was working towards the same double helix structure as Watson and Crick discovered -- but was beaten to the punch because her work had been given away. Watson, however, told Time magazine in 1999 that she had given her pictures to Professor Wilkins because she was planning to give up work on DNA.

She missed out on a Nobel Prize because she had died in 1958, aged 37, of cancer. The prize is not awarded posthumously. Had it been, Professor Wilkins might have missed out to her.

"It would have been impossible to give the prize to Maurice and not to her [if she had lived]," Crick once said. "She did the key experimental work."

All of the scientists involved later described the discovery of DNA as a cooperative effort, in which teams of scientists from around the world contributed vital information leading to Crick and Watson's final Eureka.

As well as the Nobel, Professor Wilkins was honoured in 1960 with the American Public Health Association's Albert Lasker Award, and in 1962 he was made a Companion of the British Empire.

He remained at King's College, teaching even into his 80s. He also remained an ardent campaigner against nuclear weapons.

In March, 2001, a monument to him was unveiled at Pongaroa.

He married Patricia Ann Chidgey in 1959. They had two children, Sarah and George.

Professor Wilkins died on Tuesday.

- NZPA