Wilkins, Maurice Hugh Frederick (1916-2004)

New Zealand-born British molecular biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1962 with Francis Crick and James Watson for the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA and of the significance of this structure in the replication and transfer of genetic information.

Wilkins began his career as a physicist working on luminescence and phosphorescence, radar, and the separation of uranium isotopes, and worked in the USA during World War II on the development of the atomic bomb. After the war he turned his attention from nuclear physics to molecular biology, and studied the genetic effects of ultrasonic waves, nucleic acids, and viruses by using ultraviolet light.

Wilkins was born in Pongaroa and studied in the UK at Cambridge. He became professor of biophysics at London in 1970.

Studying the X-ray diffraction pattern of DNA, he discovered that the molecule has a double-helical structure and passed on his findings to Crick and Watson.