Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin

By: Somewhere R. Albacite

Nobel Laureate

in Chemistry

1964

Contributions in Science

Private Life

Social Activities

Early Years

Education

Challenges

Early Years

She spent the period of World War I in the UK under the care of relatives and friends

born on 12 May 1910 in Cairo, Egypt

Her parents moved around the globe as her father's government career unfolded

Hodgkin was influenced by a book that described how to grow crystals of alum and copper sulfate and on X rays and crystals.

EducationHodgkin was initially educated at home and in a succession of small private schools

She entered Somerville College for women at Oxford University and studied chemistry

She also studied at the University of Cambridge under the tutelage of John Desmond Bernal, where she became aware of the potential of X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of proteins

What is Crystallography?

Max von Laue, William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg discovered that the atoms in a crystal deflected X rays. 

Constructive interference: bright spot could be captured on photographic film

Destructive interference : the brightness will be cancelled

The pattern of the X-ray spots - diffraction pattern - bore a mathematical relationship to the positions of individual atoms in the crystal. 

Thus, by shining X rays through a crystal, capturing the pattern on film, and doing mathematical calculations on the distances and relative positions of the spots, the molecular structure of almost any crystalline material could theoretically be worked out. 

Hodgkin and Bernal produced 12 joint crystallographic papers.

When she worked for pepsin, she found that proteins are much larger and more complicated than other biological molecules because they are polymers - long chains of repeating units - and they exercise their biochemical functions by folding over on themselves and assuming specific three-dimensional shapes

In 1934, Hodgkin returned to Oxford as a teacher at Somerville College, continuing her doctoral work on sterols at the same time

Somerville's crystallography and laboratory facilities were extremely primitive;

she needed to climb several times a day to reach the only window with sufficient light for her polarizing microscope

Hodgkin suffered most of her adult life from a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis

Oxford officially barred her from research meetings of the faculty chemistry club because she was a woman

Problems encountered :

Contributions in Scienceelucidation of cholesterol iodide's molecular structure

worked out the structure of penicillin together with her advisee

determined the spatial conformation of insulin, the so-called tertiary structure through X-ray diffraction

The Nobel Prize

In 1948, Hodgkin began work on the structure of vitamin B-12 the deficiency of which causes pernicious anemia

it turned out to be a porphyrin, a type of molecule related to chlorophyll, but with a single atom of cobalt at the center.

She was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in chemistry for her works in protein crystallography particularly that of Vitamin B-12

Private LifeHodgkin was inspired to pursue X-ray crystallography by her scientific mentor and “lover ” Professor John Desmond Bernal

She always referred to him as "Sage" for his Marxism, voracious mind and even more voracious appetite for women

Bernal greatly influenced her life both scientifically and politically. 

In 1937, Dorothy Crowfoot married Thomas Hodgkin, the cousin of an old friend

They maintained separate residences until 1945 when he finally obtained a teaching position at Oxford. 

Despite this unusual arrangement, their marriage was a happy and successful one.

the Hodgkins had three: Luke, born in 1938, Elizabeth, born in 1941, and Toby, born in 1946. 

Social activities

During her tenure as president of Pugwash, Dorothy requested all living Nobel scientists to sign a Pugwash Declaration against nuclear weapons. 

She was restricted to enter U.S. because of her affiliation with peace organizations

She became the president of Pugwash in 1976

Dr. Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin died from stroke at home in Shipston-on-Stour, England

"she will be remembered as a great chemist, a saintly, gentle and tolerant lover of people and a devoted protagonist of peace"