08 THE KNOW
Dorothy Hodgkin:
An Inspirational
and Pioneering
Scientist
Many members
of staff at Keele pass
through the doors
or walk past the
Dorothy Hodgkin
Building every day,
but who was Professor
Dorothy Hodgkin?
B
orn Dorothy May Crowfoot in 1910,
Dorothy was a British chemist known
for a number of influential discoveries
including developing protein crystallography
and deciphering and confirming the structure
of insulin, penicillin and vitamin B.
In 1964 Professor Hodgkin became the first
and only British woman to win the Nobel
Prize in Chemistry for her determination
by X-ray techniques of the structures of
biologically important molecules. Her formula
was the starting-point for the synthesis of
chemically modified penicillins that have
saved many lives, and she was regarded
as a pioneer scientist in the field of X-ray
crystallography studies of biomolecules.
Professor Hodgkin was born in Cairo
but grew up in England and received a
first-class honours degree in Chemistry
from the University of Oxford. Professor
Hodgkin completed her PhD at the University
of Cambridge, and in 1936 she was
appointed as Oxford’s first fellow and tutor
in Chemistry, a post she held until 1977.
The Dorothy Hodgkin Building on the Keele
campus was originally built to house the
Department of Physics, and in 1988 when
Professor Hodgkin gave a lecture at Keele
the main lecture theatre in the building was
named after her. In 2002 the building was
fully refurbished and Professor Hodgkin’s
eldest son and family visited Keele to unveil
a plaque officially naming the entire Dorothy
Hodgkin Building in honour of her.