X-ray diffraction data of Rosalind Franklin has played an important part in solving the structure of DNA and this technique remains important even today, where X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy are the main tools used to image DNA at high resolution. Recently, however, scanning probe techniques have gained importance due to their high signal to noise ratio, the absence of a necessity to crystallize the DNA prior to imaging, and the possibility to study protein-DNA interactions and processes as they occur.
