June Lindsey

June Monica Lindsey ( Broomhead, June 7, 1922 – November 4, 2021) was a British-Canadian physical chemist. Whilst working on X-ray crystallography at the University of Cambridge, Lindsey was influential in the elucidation of the structure of DNA. She solved the structures of the purines, adenine and guanine. Her depiction of intramolecular hydrogen bonds in adenine crystals was central to Watson and Crick's elucidation of the double helical structure of DNA.

Education and early career June Broomhead was born in Doncaster, England in June 1922. She joined the University of Cambridge, UK, in 1941. She completed the requirements for her degree in 1944, and joined the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. World War II forced her to leave her research career, however. She was encouraged to become a teacher and spent two years teaching science in a school.

She solved the crystal structure of a complex of adenine and guanine. They created cardboard models based on the dimensions from Lindsey's crystal structures. Francis Crick worked opposite Lindsey at the University of Cambridge. They did not recognise the contributions of Lindsey in their discovery of the molecular structure of nucleic acids. Lindsey moved to Canada in 1951. Before she left, Lawrence Bragg wrote to her requesting that she join him working on experimental and theoretical crystallography. In a letter, he wrote: “We badly need your hands to tackle knotty crystallographic problems, both experimental and theoretical. I wish all these things had come up while you were still with us; they would have been just in your line.” Lindsey left her career in crystallography to look after her two children. when Cambridge granted Dr. Lindsey and 900 other "unofficial" female graduates their degrees earned prior to 1948.

Belated recognition Alex MacKenzie, a pediatrician at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa, who knew Lindsey as a family friend, asked her about her career.