Great Medical Discoveries: Dorothy Hodgkin and the Structure of Penicillin

Georgina Ferry, Dorothy Hodgkin’s biographer, tells the story of the discovery of the structure of penicillin in the 1940s. Hodgkin, the only British woman to have won a Nobel Prize for science, discovered the structures of penicillin, insulin and vitamin B12. By giving a picture of how the atoms fitted together in the molecule, Hodgkin made an invaluable contribution to science. For more than 800 years Oxford has made a remarkable contribution to the art and science of medicine. Scientists, philosophers