Hodgkin, Dorothy M

Hodgkin, Dorothy M(ary)

 orig. Dorothy Mary Crowfoot

(born May 12, 1910, Cairo, Egypt—died July 29, 1994, Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, Eng.) English chemist. After studying at Oxford and Cambridge, she went to work at Oxford. From 1942 to 1949 she worked on a structural analysis of penicillin. In 1948 she and her colleagues made the first X-ray photograph of vitamin B₁₂, one of the most complex nonprotein compounds, and they eventually completely determined its atomic arrangement. In 1969 she completed a similar three-dimensional analysis of insulin. Her work won her a 1964 Nobel Prize. She was chancellor of Bristol University (1970–88) and was known for her work for peace and international scientific cooperation. In 1965 she became the second woman ever awarded the Order of Merit.