Whilst working on X-ray crystallography at the University of Cambridge, Lindsey was influential in the elucidation of the structure of DNA.
Her depiction of intramolecular hydrogen bonds in adenine crystals was central to Watson and Crick's elucidation of the double helical structure of DNA.
[4] She proposed that complementary nucleobases are bound together by hydrogen bonds, work that was expanded by Bill Cochran.
[4] Lindsey was awarded her doctorate (Ph.D.) in 1950,[7] and then moved to the University of Oxford where she worked as a postdoctoral scholar with Dorothy Hodgkin on Vitamin B12.
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.
[7] 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.