Dorothy Hodgkin

chemistry · x-ray crystallography · molecules · discovery

X-ray detective. Dorothy used special X-rays to take pictures of molecules and figure out their exact shapes, kind of like seeing the blueprint of tiny building blocks that make up everything.

Nobel Prize winner. In 1964, she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her amazing discoveries, making her the first and only British woman scientist to ever receive this top honor.

Saved lives with science. Her work helped scientists understand how insulin works, which is super important medicine for people with diabetes, and she also figured out the structure of vitamin B12.

Pioneering woman scientist. When Dorothy started her work in the 1930s, very few women were scientists, but she didn't let that stop her from becoming one of the smartest chemists in the world.

Built structural biology. Dorothy's technique of X-ray crystallography became the foundation for how scientists study and understand the structures of all kinds of biological molecules today.