An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2024 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

16061 entries, 14144 authors and 1947 subjects. Updated: December 10, 2024

HODGKIN, Dorothy Crowfoot

4 entries
  • 6923

X-Ray photographs of crystalline pepsin.

Nature, 133, 794-95, 1934.

Bernal and Hodgkin took the first X-ray photograph of a protein structure—crystalline pepsin. They showed that crystals of pepsin give an X-ray diffaction pattern, beginning protein crystallography. This may also be the beginning of structural molecular biology. The paper is freely available from Nature at this link.



Subjects: BIOCHEMISTRY, BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY › Protein Crystallization, BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY › X-Ray Crystallography, IMAGING › Photography / Photomicrography , WOMEN, Publications by › Years 1900 - 1999
  • 12635

X-ray crystallographic investigation of the structure of penicillin. IN: Clarke, Johnson, Robinson (eds.) Chemistry of penicillin (1949) 310-67.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949.

Hodgkin and colleagues, including biochemist Barbara Low, solved the structure of penicillin in 1945, demonstrating, contrary to scientific opinion at the time, that it contains a β-lactam ring. The discovery was originally published by Crowfoot (Hodgkin) and Rogers-Low in 1945 in a classified report (Committee for Protein Synthesis [CPS] report #508). The work was first made public in 1949.

In 1949 Hodgkin and Low published another version of their report in Florey, Chain et al, Antibiotics: A survey, vol. 2, ch. 27, "Structure of the penicillin molecule," pp. 946-951.

Hodgkin used an IBM ‘CPS’ (Card Programmed, electronic Calculator), to perform the extremely complex math/generation/interpretation of the Fourier
synthesis yielding the 3D structure. This use of a programmed electronic punched-card tabulator was a very early use of a programmed device to speed up structure factor computation in x-ray crystallography.

With Charles W. Bunn and Annette Turner-Jones.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)



Subjects: BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY › Protein Structure, COMPUTING/MATHEMATICS in Medicine & Biology › Computing / Mathematics in Medicine & Biology, PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS › Antibiotics › Penicillin
  • 6928

The crystal structure of the hexacarboxylic acid derived from B12 and the molecular structure of the vitamin.

Nature, 176, 325-8, 1955.

The final structure of vitamin B12. With J. Pickworth, J.H. Robertson, K.N. Trueblood, R.J. Prosen, J. G. White.  

In 1964 Hodgkin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances."

See also No. 12635.



Subjects: BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY, BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY › X-Ray Crystallography, NOBEL PRIZES › Nobel Prize in Chemistry (selected), NUTRITION / DIET › Vitamins, WOMEN, Publications by › Years 1900 - 1999
  • 12640

Collected works of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin. Vol. I: Insulin. Vol. 2: Cholestrol, penicillin and other antibiotics. Vol. 3: General crystallography and essays. Edited by G. G. Dodson, J. P. Glusker, S. Ramaseshan and K. Venkatesan.

Bangalore: Indian Academy of Sciences, 1996.


Subjects: BIOCHEMISTRY, BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY › Protein Structure, Collected Works: Opera Omnia