12.5.11

Happy Birthday Dorthy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin

Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin, born 12 May 1910, was a British founder of protein crystallography. She pioneered the technique of X-ray crystallography, a method used to determine the three dimensional structures of molecules. Among her most influential discoveries are the determination of the structure of penicillin, insulin, and vitamin B12 for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 1969, after 35 years of work, Hodgkin was able to decipher the structure of insulin. She is regarded as one of the foremost scientists in the field of X-ray crystallography of natural molecules.