An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2022 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

15961 entries, 13944 authors and 1935 subjects. Updated: March 22, 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, for which Hodgkin was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. With J. Pickworth, J.H. Robertson, K.N. Trueblood, R.J. Prosen, J. G. White.  



Subjects: BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY, BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY › X-Ray Crystallography, NUTRITION / DIET › Vitamins
  • 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