Rosalind Franklin British chemist and Xray crystallographer holding a model of DNA deoxyribonucleic acid Franklins high quality Xray crystallography images of DNA were crucial in the discovery of the structure of the molecule by James Watson and Francis Crick They showed that the molecule was a double helix with a sugarphosphate backbone on the outside The Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNAs structure was awarded to Crick Watson and Maurice Wilkins Franklins colleague at Kings College after Franklins death from ovarian cancer and so she was ineligible for the award