Key Information
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1945-1992 (Creation)
Level of description
Collection
Extent
54 boxes, 87 slide boxes, 24 outsize, custom-made or artefact boxes
Scope and content
Partially indexed slides and prints relating to research conducted in the Biophysics Unit, 1949-1962, and Department of Biophysics, 1962-1992, and associated journal articles and other papers, comprising: glass and acetate slides, 1949-1984 (approx 1990 items), notably x-ray diffraction photographs of DNA, also graphs and other data, illustrations of equipment and illustrations for journal articles (ref: KDBP 1/1-8); index books for the slides, 1949-1964, listing date, subject and sometimes name of researcher (ref: KDBP 2/1-7). Photographic prints, 1949-1992 (approx 490 items), including x-ray diffraction images of DNA and x-ray spectrometer diffraction patterns (ref: KDBP 3/1/1-10); photographic prints, 1959-1984, relating to work by individual named researchers, including x-ray diffraction images, microscope images, graphs, diagrams, and equipment (ref: KDBP 3/2/1-24); photographs, 1950-1992, of the staff and premises of the Biophysics Unit and later Department of Biophysics, including the construction of the Wheatstone Physics Lab, c 1950, a staff cricket match, c 1952, new laboratories at 26-29 Drury Lane, c 1963 (ref: KDBP 3/3); journal articles, 1945-1976, written by staff of the Biophysics Unit/Department of Biophysics (ref: KDBP 4/1-71). Also other papers relating to the work of the Biophysics Unit, notably the PhD thesis of Raymond Gosling, 'X-ray diffraction studies of Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid', 1954 (ref; KDBP 5/1-3).
System of arrangement
As listed above
General Information
Name of creator
Biographical history
The Department of Biophysics began as the Medical Research Council (MRC) funded Biophysics Research Unit, 1946, attached to the Department of Physics, with John Turton Randall as first Director. It moved into the purpose-built Wheatstone Physics Laboratory in the basement of the main King’s Building, 1952. Staff of the Unit published preliminary findings on the structure of DNA in the April 1953 edition of Nature, simultaneously with James Watson and Francis Crick, Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. After years of further research, Maurice Wilkins was jointly awarded, with Watson and Crick, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1962. The Unit became the Department of Biophysics in 1962 and moved to new premises in Drury Lane in 1964, with research groups working on cilia and flagella, muscle structure, nucleic acid structure, nuclear and chromosome structure, and x-ray diffraction studies of DNA and RNA. Randall retired in 1970, and was succeeded by Maurice Wilkins, 1970-1981. In 1985 the Department was combined with Cell and Molecular Biology in the Faculty of Life Sciences and in 1989 was renamed the Randall Institute. The Institute was relocated in 2001 to New Hunt’s House, Guy’s Campus, as the Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics, within the School of Biomedical Sciences.
Name of creator
Biographical history
The Biophysics Research Unit was founded in 1946 funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and attached to the Department of Physics, with John Turton Randall as first Director. It moved into the purpose-built Wheatstone Physics Laboratory in the basement of the main King’s Building, 1952. Staff of the Unit published preliminary findings on the structure of DNA in the April 1953 edition of Nature, simultaneously with James Watson and Francis Crick, Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. After years of further research, Maurice Wilkins was jointly awarded, with Watson and Crick, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1962. The Unit became part of a newly formed Department of Biophysics in 1962 and became the MRC Cell Biophysics Unit from 1974.
Repository
Conditions governing access
Open, subject to signature of Reader's undertaking form, and appropriate provision of two forms of identification, to include one photographic ID.
Conditions governing reproduction
Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied from open material for research purposes only.
Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Archives.
Language of material
Script of material
Finding aids
This summary guide and detailed catalogue
Existence and location of copies
A significant portion of the collection items are available online in the <a href="http://wellcomelibrary.org/using-the-library/subject-guides/genetics/makers-of-modern-genetics/digitised-archives/maurice-wilkins-mrc-biophysics-unit-archive/">Maurice Wilkins and Medical Research Council Biophysics Unit archive </a>hosted by the Wellcome Library.
Related materials
Alternative identifier(s)
Subjects
Place access points
People and Organisations
Genre access points
Rules and/or conventions used
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000.