Dorothy Hodgkin

In Our Time: Science

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2019

⏱️ 53 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work and ideas of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994), awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964 for revealing the structures of vitamin B12 and penicillin and who later determined the structure of insulin. She was one of the pioneers of X-ray crystallography and described by a colleague as 'a crystallographers' crystallographer'. She remains the only British woman to have won a Nobel in science, yet rejected the idea that she was a role model for other women, or that her career was held back because she was a woman. She was also the first woman since Florence Nightingale to receive the Order of Merit, and was given the Lenin Peace Prize in recognition of her efforts to bring together scientists from the East and West in pursuit of nuclear disarmament. With Georgina Ferry Science writer and biographer of Dorothy Hodgkin Judith Howard Professor of Chemistry at Durham University and Patricia Fara Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:57.0	Hello, in 1964 Dorothy Hodgkin became the first British woman to win a Nobel Prize
1:01.6	in science and so far the only one. It was in chemistry and the award was specifically
1:06.8	quote for her determinations by x-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical
1:12.0	substances namely penicillin and vitamin B12, and to these
1:16.2	she later added insulin. Her discoveries helped with the manufacture of drugs for the treatment
1:21.2	of infection, of anemia and of diabetes, and in the words of the pioneer in her field, Lawrence Bragg, another Nobel Prize winner, her early achievements were, quote, the equivalent of breaking the sound barrier.
1:32.0	With me to discuss Dorothy Hodgkin's work in life are Patricia
1:35.8	Fara, fellow of Claire College Cambridge, Georgina Ferry, a science writer and biographer of Dorothy Hodgkin,
	...

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