Hodgkin, Dorothy
British crystallographer and Nobel Prize winner (1910-1994).
Dorothy Crowfoot, as she was born, was educated at Somerville College, Oxford. After a brief period as a postgraduate student at Cambridge University, she returned to Oxford in 1934 and spent her entire academic career there. After various appointments within the university, she became the first Royal Society Wolfson Research Professor at Oxford in 1960.
Hodgkin had the good fortune to fall under the influence of the inspiring and scientifically imaginative physicist J. D. Bernal at Cambridge, who opened the way to investigate complex organic molecules with the technique of X-ray diffraction analysis. Hodgkin’s first major result came in 1949 when, with Charles Bunn, she published the three dimensional structure of penicillin. This was followed by the structure of vitamin B12 in 1956 and that of insulin in 1969. For her work on vitamin B12, Hodgkin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964.
Read Also:
- Hogwarts headache
A generalized headache from spending many hours reading an unusually long volume such as one of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. The pain resolves one to two days after the patient finishes the book. The term was coined by Dr. Howard J. Bennett in a Letter to the Editor of The New England Journal of […]
- Holandric inheritance
Inheritance of genes on the Y chromosome. Because only males normally have Y chromosomes, Y-linked genes can only be transmitted from father to son.
- Hole, macular
A hole in the macula, the tiny oval area made up of millions of nerve cells located at the center of the retina responsible for sharp, central vision. The eye contains a jelly-like substance called the vitreous. Shrinking of the vitreous usually causes the hole. As a person ages, the vitreous becomes thicker and stringier […]
- Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Sr.
“If every drug from the vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdom were to disappear from the market, a body of enlightened men, organized as a distinct profession, would be required just as much as now, whose province should be to guard against the causes of disease, to eliminate them if possible when still present . . […]
- Holoprosencephaly
This relatively common birth defect of the brain, often also affects facial features, causing closely spaced eyes, small head size, and sometimes clefts of the lip and roof of the mouth. Not all individuals with holoprosencephaly (HPE) are affected to the same degree, even in families where more than one individual has this predisposition. The […]