Dorothy
Hodgkin was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1910.
She studied chemistry at Somerville College,
Oxford but moved to Cambridge
University in 1932 to work on the development of X-ray crystallography
with John
Bernal.
Over the next four years Hodgkin and Bernal produced 12 joint crystallographic
papers.
In 1934
Hodgkin returned to Oxford University and
carried out research into the structure of penicillin. Hodgkin was
eventually able to establish that penicillin consisted of a ring of
three carbons and a nitrogen. She then went on to determine the structure
of the antibiotic cephalosporin C.
After the
Second World War Hodgkin became the first scientist
in Britain to use a computer to analyze the molecular structure of
complex chemicals and this enabled her to produce three-dimensional
models.
In 1948
Hodgkin began her work on vitamin B12. More
complex than penicillin, Hodgkin and her team took eight years to
determine its structure. Later she carried out research into the structure
of insulin.
Hodgkin,
the Royal Society Wolfson Research Professor at Oxford (1960-1977),
won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964. A committed socialist,
Hodgkin was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1987.
While
Chancellor of Bristol University (1970-1988), Hodgkin helped establish
a scholarship for students from the developing world. Dorothy
Hodgkin died
in 1994.
Isidore Fankuchen,
Dorothy Hodgkin, J.
D. Bernal
and Dina Fankuchen in September, 1939)
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