Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was a British chemist who developed protein crystallography, for which she received a Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1964. Dorothy discovered a lot of things during her time as a scientist. She advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography, a method used to determine the three-dimensional structures of molecules. Dorothy was born on May 12, 1910 and she passed on July 29 1994. She was born in Egypt and died in England. One of her discoveries was vitamin B12. She was the third woman to receive a Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Dorothy was the oldest of all three girls. They lived in Egypt in the cold parts of the year and moved to England when Egypt was getting in the hotter parts of the year. Dorothy’s father, John Winter Crowfoot, worked for the country’s Ministry of Education. Dorothy’s mother, Grace Mary Crowfoot, was known to all friends and family. Mary left Dorothy and her two sisters once they were all four years old. Dorothy and her sisters went to live with their grandparents because they had nowhere else to live. When Dorothy was asked in the later life to name her heroes, she named three women: the medical missionary Mary Slessor, the Principal of Somerville College, Margery Fry, and, first and foremost, her adoptive mother, Molly.

When Dorothy was 10 years old, she started to become interested in chemistry and in crystals. Her interest started from talking to Dr. A.F. Joseph, a friend of Dorothy’s parents. Dr. A.F. Joseph gave Dorothy chemicals to study. Since girls didn’t have a chemistry lab at her school, Dorothy and her friend were chosen to be sent to the boys chemistry lab. By the end of her school year, she decided to study chemistry and biochemistry in the university. The first year of university, Dorothy combined archaeology and chemistry so that she could learn new subjects. She attended a special course in crystallography.

Dorothy went to Oxford and Somerville College from 1928-32 and she became devoted to Margery Fry. At her university, she was sent straight to year two of chemistry because she was outstanding according to her teacher. It was really tough to go to school for her. However, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was a fighter and she never gave up on the things she was interested in. She was interested in chemistry her whole life, and when she grew up, she was something big.