1964 Nobel Prize, Pioneer in x-ray crystallography & structures of molecules

Crowfoot Hodgkin identified & confirmed structures of molecules using x-ray crystallography, the experimental science of determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal. By measuring the angles and intensities of the X-ray diffraction, a crystallographer can produce a three-dimensional picture of the density of electrons within the crystal and the positions of the atoms, as well as their chemical bonds, crystallographic disorder, and other information. Using this tool, she was able to map penicillin's 17 atoms in four years. It took her eight years to map the 181 atoms of vitamin B-12, and 34 years for the 788 atoms of insulin; she considered the last to be her crowning achievement. Crowfoot Hodgkin’s work was instrumental in paving the way for the mass-production of insulin, used on a large-scale for the treatment of type 1 & 2 diabetes. Her work with penicillin allowed it to be mass-produced and is widely used as an antibiotic. She was the first to completely determine the structure of a complex organic molecule (cholesterol) by x-ray crystallography. Crowfoot Hodgkin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964 for her work.

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Category:
Biology - Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, X-ray crystallography

Completion Status:
yes

Patent Number:
N/A

Co-Inventor:
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