15. Dorothy Hodgkin Discovered the Structure of Penicillin
Born in 1910 to parents who were colonial administrators in Cairo, Egypt, Dorothy Hodgkin and her siblings were mainly educated in England. Though separated by a continent, Dorothy’s mother encouraged her to pursue her interest in chemistry, particularly in the use of crystals. Dorothy worked hard to be taken seriously in a male-dominated field and was rewarded with the chance to study at the University of Oxford. She went on to do doctoral work at the University of Cambridge, where she used X-rays to study the protein structure of the pepsin molecule. She specialized in using crystals and X-rays to study the composition of biological compounds.
Following her doctoral studies in 1934, Dorothy was invited to research at Somerville College in Oxford, where she remained until she retired 33 years later. She used the resources provided to her there to begin studying the make-up of insulin, something to which she dedicated much of her career to understanding. Despite developing rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 28, she continued the tedious work of mounting tiny crystal grains onto slides so that she could study them.
In 1939, when England was on the cusp of entering World War II, she was asked to set aside her work in insulin to try to understand better the structure of penicillin, a necessary antibiotic that would save the lives of many soldiers on the battlefield. She successfully isolated the structure of the molecule, earning her an election to the Royal Society. Dorothy Hodgkin went on to discover the structure of the B12 molecule but never gave up on insulin. Finally, advances in computer technology proved sufficient that in 1969, she was able to discover the structure of an insulin molecule.
In addition to her advancements in the lab, she advocated for scientific cooperation amongst hostile parties during the Cold War.