Victoria Voelker

Mrs. Richards
4A

Dorothy Hodgkin
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was a British biochemist who became the third woman in
history to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Hodgkin is notable for her discoveries and
achievements in three- dimensional biomolecular structures with her most influential discoveries
in determining the structure of protein crystallography, the structure of penicillin and the
structure of vitamin B12.
Born on May 10, 1910 in Cairo, Egypt, Hodgkin developed an interest in science as a
young child and at the age of 18, after taking private tuition, went on to study chemistry at the
University of Oxford, an institution where she would dedicate most of her career as a scientist, a
mentor and a tutor. Hodgkin later went on to study for a Doctor of Philosophy at the University
of Cambridge where, under the supervision of mentor Professor John Desmond Bernal, she
became aware of X-ray crystallography and it's potential to determine protein structure in the
methods first application to analyze the biological substance, pepsin.
After moving back to Oxford in 1934, Hodgkin was appointed the university's first tutor
in chemistry teaching many students throughout the next three decades, among them future
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In 1945 Hodgkin, alongside fellow scientist C. H. Carlisle,
developed the first example of a steroid. That same year Hodgkin went on to decipher the
structure of penicillin and in 1949 her work was published. Along with her work in penicillin,
vitamin B12, and protein crystallography, another notable achievement of Dorothy's was her
research and discovery of insulin and the effects and function it served in the human body. She
travelled the world giving speeches about insulin and its relation to diabetes.

Hodgkin's personal life was one of a traditional woman of the 1930's, maintaining a brief
love affair with her mentor John Desmond Bernal and later going on to marry well-respected
Oxford lecturer, and occasional Communist Part member, Thomas Lionel Hodgkin. Because of
her association with her husband, who had become and advisor to the president of Ghana and his
status as a Communist Party member, Hodgkin was banned from entering the US in 1953 and
was allowed to visit the country through CIA waiver only. As a mother of three children,
Hodgkin became concerned with social inequalities and ending conflict both domestic and
international.
Along with her Nobel Prize, Hodgkin has been awarded many other prestigious titles as
well, including becoming the second woman ever to recieve the Order of Merit in 1965, the first
woman to win the Copley Medal, a Fellow of Royal Society, winner of the Lenin Peace Prize,
and was appointed Chancellor of Bristol University from 1970 to 1988.
Dorothy Hodgkin died of a stroke on July 29 1994 at the age of 84 in her home in
Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire. Her influence a woman in the field of science continues to be
recognized, awardednd admired to this day