Dorothy Mary Crowfoot
Hodgkin was a scientist. She is the third female
winner of Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1963 after
Marie Curie and her daughter Irene Curie Juliot, and she was also the second
woman to receive the Order of Merit award from Queen Elizabeth II after
Florence Nightingale. She was born in England in the overseas academic
environment that is Cairo, Egypt while her father served and worked for the
Egyptian Education Service. Her mother was a botanist and textile expert who
spent time to make illustrations of plants.
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Dorothy Hodgkin’s Early Research Career
When her father was
assigned to Sudan, Dr. A. F. Joseph, her father's friend gave her chemicals to
analyze ilmenite. She studied at Somerville College, Oxford and then worked in
the laboratory X-ray crystallography at Cambridge University. Together with J.
D. Bernal she applied X-ray diffraction on crystals of the protein, and pepsin.
They announced the X-ray diffraction pattern of pepsin and explain how to study
the protein crystals in solution by dissolving the original, not dried because
dried produce protein crystal diffraction patterns are difficult to interpret.
In 1934 Dorothy
returned to Oxford University and stay focused with X-ray diffraction patterns
to determine the structure of biomolecules. She was banned from attending
meetings organized study clubs chemistry teacher just because she is a woman. However,
her talent and tenacity give her a strong position in
the academic environment.
When World War 2 the
doctors ran out of penicillin, antibiotics that time can only be obtained by
the traditional way of farming mushrooms. X-rays, Dorothy managed to determine
the structure that allows the antibiotic penicillin is produced by the
synthesis and large scale. It uses the method of isomorphous crystals, i.e.
crystals in which one atom is replaced by a heavier atom. These heavy atoms
scatter X-rays are coming more powerful than the atom protein molecule itself.
By diffracting the X-rays at a crystal isomorphous replacement of the atomic
weight of the position is different, information from several X-ray diffraction
images collected can be put together to determine the actual molecular
structure.
Dorothy Hodgkin’s Life
In 1937 Dorothy
married to Dr. Thomas Hodgkin an academic elite nephew A. L. Hodgkin's
lymphoma. They were blessed with 3 children, two sons and a daughter. Although
busy teaching, researching and educating her son, she could still participate
in the humanitarian organizations to world peace. Dorothy co-workers describe
him as a sincere, simple, loving and caring. Her home was always open to her
friends and her students; one of her students was Margaret Thatcher, British prime minister. Dorothy was a good teacher, a good lecturer.
Behind its perfection
as a mother, scientist and humanitarian activist turns out she also struggled
against the disease rheumatoid arthritis
since the age of 24. Passed her old age with paralyzed legs and hands but did
not inhibit its activity to attend an international symposium. After the
success in determining the molecular structure of penicillin, insulin, vitamin
B-12 and many other proteins, in 1994 she quit the total of all activities as a
stroke.
News about her death
is not so published. Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin was a good scientist. Her good track records are to contribute to the development of chemical research, still loves
teaching and friendly to students, and she was the perfect
mother for her family.
