Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin (12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994), was a British chemist. She developed protein crystallography. Hodgkin received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964.
Early life
Hodgkin was born in Cairo, Egypt. She and her sisters were sent to live in England when World War l started. She spent the rest of her life there.
Her mother was an expert on nature and Ancient Egyptian textiles. Hodgkin’s father was a British archeologist and scholar.
Career
She studied crystals and became a tutor at Somerville College, Oxford. In 1969, Hodgkin used computer technology to analyse the structure of Insulin. Insulin is a protein which is used to treat diabetes.
Hodgkin advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography. It is a method used to discover the three dimensional structures of biomolecules.
Ernst Chain thought he had found the structure of penicillin, and Hodgkin proved he was right. She also found the structure of vitamin B12. For her work she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
In 1969, after 35 years of work and five years after winning the Nobel Prize, Hodgkin was able to find the structure of insulin.
X-ray crystallography became a widely used tool and was used to find the structures of many biological molecules, such as DNA. The structure of molecules helps us understand how they work.
Honours
Apart from the Nobel Prize, she was appointed to the Order of Merit, and given the Copley Medal, the top award of the Royal Society.
Later, she was Chancellor of Bristol University from 1970 to 1988, and President of Pugwash from 1976 to 1988. Pugwash is an organization which holds conferences on Science and World Affairs.
Her best-known student was Margaret Thatcher, who consulted her when she (Thatcher) was in office.
Controversies
Hodgkin was not allowed to enter the United States without special permission from the CIA. She protested and wanted world peace. She was also a friend of J.D. Bernal, who was also left-wing. She received the Lenin Peace Prize in 1987.
Hodgkin died of a stroke in 1994.