DNA Boffin Dead, Aged 88

Tributes have been paid after the death of a British scientist hailed as an unsung hero of DNA research.

Professor Maurice Wilkins was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1962 along with the two scientists credited for describing the structure of DNA, Francis Crick and James Watson.

His death in hospital on Tuesday, aged 88, was announced by King’s College London yesterday, where he had remained a professor in his latter years.

Professor Wilkins and his colleagues at King’s College spent seven years verifying the hypothetical double-helix model of DNA that Watson and Crick constructed.