The NIH National Library of Medicine posted an extensive collection of Rosalind Franklin's correspondence and lab notebooks online. In addition to documenting her work on the structure of Tobacco Mosaic Virus with J.D. Bernal and some of her other important scientific contributions, several sources pertain to the now infamous years from 1951 to 1953; spent at J.T. Randall's lab in King's College. It's fascinating browsing through her meticulous notes troubleshooting the isolation of DNA fibers from the sample provided by Randolf Signer. But beyond the scientific process, there's a strong lesson to be learned. Those years at King's are quite telling of the issues that can arise when conflict in the lab is mismanaged (something staff writer Kerry Grens addresses quite well in our February issue). Signer had provided the sample to Maurice Wilkins who was interested in DNA. Randall took Franklin off of the proteins she had been working on to put her crystallography expertise to use on the DNA samples. Franklin assumed the project was hers and resented intrusions on the part of Wilkins. Attempts to collaborate failed, and it seems Randall did little to mediate the conflict. Long before the structure of the double helix was published, Franklin was itching to get out of King's and join Bernal.