Hodgkin, Dorothy Crowfoot (1910-1994), a British biochemist and crystallographer, won the 1964 Nobel Prize in chemistry for determining the highly complex structure of the vitamin B-12 molecule. She used X rays to make this discovery. Knowledge of the molecular structure of vitamin B-12 has enabled scientists to better understand how the body uses this substance to build red blood cells and prevent a disease called pernicious anemia.
Hodgkin devoted her career to studying the structures of complex substances through a method called X-ray crystallographic analysis (see X rays (In crystal research) ). During the 1940’s, she determined the molecular structures of cholesterol iodide, penicillin, and other related organic compounds. In 1969, she revealed the three-dimensional structure of insulin, a protein used to treat diabetes.
Dorothy Crowfoot was born on May 12, 1910, in Cairo, Egypt. She graduated from Oxford University in 1931 and joined the faculty of the university in 1934. She conducted most of her research at Oxford, and was widely honored for her work. Crowfoot married Thomas L. Hodgkin, a historian, in 1937. She died on July 29, 1994.
