Dorothy Hodgkin

Today is the birthday of chemist Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1910. Her father worked for the Egyptian Education Service, and both her parents became authorities in Middle Eastern and North African archaeology. But Dorothy took an interest in minerals and crystals, and as a teenager she began learning about how x rays can reveal crystals’ internal structure. At Somerville College, University of Oxford, she became one of the first researchers to study organic compounds by shooting x rays at the crystals and analyzing the diffraction of the rays—a technique called x-ray crystallography. She received a PhD from Cambridge in 1937. Despite developing rheumatoid arthritis at age 28, Hodgkin continued to perform precision experiments with tiny crystals. She determined the structure of important biochemical compounds including penicillin and vitamin B12, which earned her the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 1969, using computers and advanced x-ray techniques, she finally revealed the structure of insulin, 34 years after she began studying the complex protein. In the later stages of her career Hodgkin turned her attention to social causes including the welfare of scientists in developing countries. She was also a dedicated teacher at Somerville, where her students included Margaret Thatcher.

Date in History: 12 May 1910