It is essential for genetic material to be able to make exact copies of itself; otherwise growth would produce disorder, life could not originate, and favourable forms would not be perpetuated by natural selection.

The Wilkins moved to Birmingham England when Maurice was 6. Crick tried to get Wilkins to continue with additional molecular modeling efforts but Wilkins did not take this approach.

He is best known for his work at King's College London on the structure of DNA. In recognition of this work he Francis Crick and James Watson were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material. Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins CBE FRS (15 December 1916 – 5 October 2004) was a New Zealand-born English physicist and molecular biologist and Nobel Laureate whose research contributed to the scientific understanding of phosphorescence isotope separation optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction and to the development of radar.