This paper reports Franklin's discovery of the existence of DNA in 2 forms, and conditions for readily and rapidly changing from one to the other. Its phosphates were on the outside.” (Maddox 195)  The Watson-Crick model of the double helix was in large part derived from her work. The striking Photo 51 of the B form of DNA that was influential in convincing Watson that the form was helical, appeared as an illustration to her and Gosling’s paper, with no suggestion that Watson had seen it, let alone been inspired by it. She appended also her comment that the photograph ‘is strongly characteristic . . .of a helical structure. See Maddox, Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA (2002) 211-212)  Various authorities have suggested that it was Rosalind Franklin, rather than Maurice Wilkins, who should have shared the Nobel Prize with Watson and Crick for the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA; however, Franklin died before the prize was awarded, and the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously.

Franklin and Gosling's completed Patterson synthesis of the A-form of DNA, based on work begun in 1952, represents the first independent confirmation that the Watson-Crick double-helix model was correct. "We suggest that the unit in structure A is, as in Structure B, two co-axial helical chains running in opposite directions" (p. [5]). "The demonstration of the correctness of the structure is thus doubly convincing because the double-helical structure may be arranged to fit the X-ray data of both forms." (Klug, "Rosalind Franklin and the Discovery of the Structure of DNA" Nature 219 [1968]: 808). Judson, Eighth Day of Creation, p. 161.