Women Scientists

Dorothy Hodgkin 1910-1994

At a glance:

British crystallographer, Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1964

'Oxford Housewife wins Nobel' was the headline run by the Daily Mail when Dorothy Hodgkin won the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1964. The 'housewife' was in fact one of the most outstanding scientists of the 20th Century. She analysed the molecular structure of complex chemicals including antibiotics (penicillin and cephalosporin C), cholesterol, vitamins (D and B12 used to treat anaemia) and hormones. The technique she used involves passing X rays through crystals which produces diffraction patterns on film from which the 3D structures can be deduced. It requires intuition, creativity and endless patience. Penicillin contains 39 atoms, insulin contains thousands and it took 34 years to determine its structure. Hodgkin was remarkable in many ways - she was a committed socialist who was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize and also overcame crippling rheumatoid arthritis which afflicted her from a young age. She became only the second woman after Florence Nightingale to have received the Award of Merit. She received the Nobel Prize in 1964 for her work on insulin, but any of her discoveries was worthy of a Nobel.
Dorothy Hodgkin

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