A longtime collaborator and friend of Hodgkin, Max Perutz was also one of her biggest champions, often speaking of her intelligence and skill, her humanity, and her worthiness of accolades. This was high praise, since Perutz himself was considered both influential in science and likable in life.
Born in Austria, Perutz started his studies at Vienna University, but he soon transferred to Cambridge, where he worked with Bernal, as Hodgkin did. Not long after, Hitler invaded Austria, and Perutz’s parents and siblings fled, becoming refugees, depending on Perutz for help resettling in other countries. (Though Catholic in religious belief, they were Jewish in ancestry.) Perutz was lucky to have already been living in Great Britain at this time. When Germany annexed Austria in 1938, England considered any Austrian citizens living within its borders “enemy aliens.” Perutz was questioned and considered to be not a threat. He was lucky for a second time. Then Germany invaded Norway and the Netherlands. This time, Perutz faced great, unreasonable consequences. He was one of the seven thousand Austrian and German nationals who were sent from Britain to internment camps in Canada. Internment camps are basically prisons for people whose “crime” is that they are considered enemies of the country they live in and people who express political beliefs different from those in charge (political prisoners).
Fortunately, Perutz’s luck reappeared just in time: both Caltech and MIT, universities in the United States, offered him fellowships, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, and his British colleagues protested so loudly that he was allowed to return to England. It was England’s turn to be lucky: the country was smart to allow back in one of its most promising minds. Using X-ray crystallography, Perutz determined the structure of hemoglobin, the protein molecule in blood that carries oxygen to the body’s tissues and carbon dioxide back to the lungs. He also studied the texture and flow of glaciers, via their crystals, which also allowed him to pursue two of his other loves, mountain climbing and skiing. Like Hodgkin, he looked beyond the laboratory and had a sense of humor. He published many essays, including a collection with the attention-grabbing title I Wish I’d Made You Angry Earlier: Essays on Science, Scientists and Humanity.
Max Perutz was a good friend of Hodgkin’s, and he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry just two years before she did.
Helen Megaw (1907–2002)
It’s not every day that a person receives an award for work and definitely not every day that one gets an honor as unique as scientist Helen Megaw did: she was awarded an island. Her first research project as an X-ray crystallographer was on the structure of ice, and in acknowledgment, there’s now an island in the Antarctic named after her, Megaw Island (at 66°55'S, 67°36'W).
She studied with J. D. Bernal at Cambridge at the same time Hodgkin did. In fact, she played a key role in Hodgkin’s pepsin work with Bernal. They were struggling with making their pepsin crystals usable. Unfortunately, sometimes in order to study something, you end up harming or even destroying it. Think of the measures museums go to control light, temperature, and moisture levels around an artifact or piece of artwork, as well as how many hands, with and without gloves, touch it. In order to study and admire the piece, we put it at risk of damage by those kinds of forces. X-rays are so powerful that they also can do damage to the crystals scientists wielding the X-ray tube are trying to study. Megaw had developed a technique of freezing a crystal inside a Lindemann glass tube of heavy water. This tube acted as a protective barrier to help preserve the crystal during study. Hodgkin and Bernal used Megaw’s method, and the next photograph they took was hugely successful.
Both Megaw and Hodgkin seemed to have natural talent with crystal structures. One of Megaw’s post-doctoral assistants wrote in her obituary that Megaw could turn a structure around in her mind, see all its angles before actually drawing it, and then draw it correctly. Those are mental gymnastics usually left to computers these days.
Megaw had another interesting connection to Hodgkin. She suggested a collaboration of crystallographers, artists, and manufacturers to pattern fabrics, plates, and wallpaper, among other items, with designs. All of the designs would be inspired by atomic structures discovered by crystallographers. These were displayed at the Festival of Britain, a celebration of Great Britain, in 1951. Hodgkin’s mother and sister Elisabeth, textile experts, likely would have found that very exciting indeed.
Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958)
Though her life was tragically short, ended by ovarian cancer, Rosalind Franklin, a contemporary of Hodgkin’s, made one of the biggest impacts on life as we know it—because she helped figure life out. Her data, calculated from her X-ray diffraction images, was the data Francis Crick and James Watson used to understand the double helix of DNA, the carrier of our genetic makeup.
After a lot of persuading, her father allowed her to study not to be a social worker, as he wanted her to be, but to be a scientist as she wanted to be, and as her high grades in physics and chemistry supported. She earned her doctorate in physical chemistry from Cambridge in 1945. J. D. Bernal was a big admirer of her X-ray image of DNA. If she hadn’t died so early in her career, and less than two years after learning she was sick, she likely would have changed the world even more. When she died, she was working on the tobacco mosaic virus, a disease of over 350 different plant species, and the polio virus.
With the establishment of the Rosalind Franklin Society, there is hope that more women will do such important work but with more acknowledgment by peers and public alike. The organization encourages and motivates scientists who are women.
Isabella Karle (1921–)
Another contemporary of Hodgkin’s era, Isabella Karle had started working at the young age of twelve—in a cigar factory, no less, filling boxes with hand-rolled cigars. But in her spare time, she taught herself to read, in both English and Polish—she was an immigrant to the United States. She also taught herself math. Because of her self-education, she was able to improve her career options vastly.
Before Karle even started school, she was doing the accounting on some of her parents’ restaurant bills. Impressed with her work, her mom taught her to read and write in Polish. So, even though Karle didn’t know English when she started school at six years old, she was able to pick her studies up quickly. She skipped a total of three grades before high school. There, she was to take chemistry, physics, or biology, and she picked chemistry, which had a female teacher. That teacher was not the last to encourage Karle in her science studies. Her college chemistry teacher—a man—noticed her excellent work and told her matter-of-factly that she was going to graduate school. By the time she was twenty-three years old, after many classes in which she was the only woman, she had earned her PhD.
She married one of her fellow chemistry students, and together they made some revolutionary advances in structure analysis. Jerome Karle would later win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing mathematical formulas for understanding crystals. He usually approached problems through their calculations, and his wife was the experimenter. She taught herself X-ray crystallography to try to put his numbers into action. Karle’s electron diffraction apparatus allowed for analysis of even mismatched X-ray wavelengths and intervals between atoms. Hodgkin’s work helped speed the analysis process, and today’s computers and synchrotrons are doing so again; in between these two advancements, Karle’s work created a midpoint leap. Annual published analyses of structures grew from 150 to over 10,000 with her technique. Though the Karles did not share the Nobel Prize, Isabella would eventually receive recognition in her own right. She was “surprised and pleased that the women engineers were the ones who gave me my first award,” the Women in Science and Engineering’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
She and her husband both went on to the Manhattan Project, a US-government-funded research project that created the atomic bomb. Karle did not work directly on the bomb; however, it was still a dangerous place to work. One time when Karle was walking past the Coca-Cola soda fountain, her radiation meter blared.
The soda delivery man had unknowingly used an infected hose to fill the machine.
Looking back on her career, which included a long time with the Naval Research Laboratory, she fondly recalled that she’d done what she loved, faced no real catastrophe, and had been recognized for her work.
Barbara Rogers-Low
Barbara Rogers-Low was Hodgkin’s colleague during her work on the structure of penicillin. Together, they measured the bond distances between atoms in the penicillin molecule with impressive accuracy. To do this, they used X-rays and the Fourier method. This was considered huge in part because it was the first time X-ray data was solely used to map a molecule’s structure; the fact that it happened with a molecule as complex as penicillin seems almost over-the-top impressive.
J. D. Bernal (1901–1971)
In this abbreviated list of Hodgkin’s peers, John Desmond Bernal is singled out because he was so essential in Hodgkin’s life. Perhaps he worked well with Hodgkin, first a student of his and then a colleague, romantic partner, and friend, in part because he grew up with a strong mother. Though Bernal was Irish, his mom was American and was a member of the one of the first classes at Stanford University.
As Hodgkin came to be affected by war, so was Bernal. World War I was ending as he studied mathematics and then natural sciences at Emmanuel College Cambridge. He earned his nickname, Sage, by participating in political discussions with thoughtfulness and intelligence. He later would become a Communist and Marxist. He was such a supporter of the Soviet Union that the World Peace Council, the organization he cofounded with Frederic Joliot-Curie, might have been a bit propagandist in that country’s favor, spinning information so that the Soviet Union seemed above criticism. But it also may have encouraged Premier Nikita Khrushchev to stay calmer than he otherwise would have during the Cuban missile crisis.
As Hodgkin did, Bernal also worked under William Bragg, studying crystallography. He invented the X-ray film method, with a rotation camera, and became a lecturer in structural crystallography at Cambridge. His work with steroids, which Hodgkin found so amazing, nearly earned him a Nobel Prize. Now the Society for Social Studies of Science awards an annual John Desmond Bernal Prize.
The Crowfoot Family
No one else in Hodgkin’s family worked in X-ray crystallography, but that doesn’t mean her parents and sisters didn’t inspire and support her along her unique and historic journey. Both of Hodgkin’s parents were passionate about education, international work, and research. All four Crowfoot daughters followed their parents’ general lead. Elisabeth followed the closest—she went into textile research, same as their mother. Diana worked with her explorer husband Graham Rowley on arctic archaeology, anthropology, and geology. Joan was a pioneer in lithic studies, or studies of the stone tools of ancient societies. Interestingly, Dorothy and Joan were also similar in less apparent ways. Both worked diligently but without needing fanfare. They were interested in their research because the challenges and the results were interesting to them, not because they thought there had to be glory in it. As the Journal of the Council for British Research in the Levant said of Joan in its obituary of her, her work wasn’t flashy, but her dependable success rate and passion laid a basis for generations to come. All of the Crowfoot women quietly, steadily improved the world.
From all angles, Hodgkin was a brilliant scientist.
SOMETIMES CRITICISM IS JUST PICKING A SIDE
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was well respected and well liked throughout her life. Crystallography, which she helped perfect, was recognized even during her time as revolutionary. It would also often provide answers no one was expecting. Critics came from within the crystallography community, too, as these passionate people tried to understand the answers; however, of Hodgkin and her work, there were few if any complaints. Max Perutz, a fellow Nobel-winning chemist, wrote in her obituary in the Independent: “She had no enemies, not even among those whose scientific theories she demolished or whose political views she opposed.”
For a while, scientists couldn’t agree on how the atoms in penicillin linked. One side said it was a thiazolidine-oxazolone structure: two five-membered rings of atoms connected by one bond. The other side thought the beta lactam theory was correct, that one five-membered ring was fused to a four-membered ring. John Cornforth, a contemporary of Hodgkin’s, supposedly said that if the beta lactam formula was correct, he’d stop being a chemist and become a mushroom farmer.
Hodgkin took a more open stand. She suggested they let science decide. She was willing to trust scientific experimentation over her own ego to find the truth.
John Cornforth
Artist Maggi Hambling captured Hodgkin’s spirit in this oil painting. The piece is part of the National Portrait Gallery’s primary collection.
CHAPTER
FIVE
FROM GOOGLE DOODLE TO RURAL DIAMOND
All scientists and labs leave legacies. When a scientist dies or a lab closes, what becomes of everything that person has done and worked so hard for? Scientists and governing bodies must be thoughtful with knowledge, but there is hope. As you’ll see in this chapter, the chain of knowledge, discovery, and human advancement that Dorothy Hodgkin started cannot easily be broken. There are so many strong links now in that chain, all of which help tell the tale of Hodgkin’s personal legacy in her field.
CELEBRATING CRYSTALLOGRAPHY
What would Dorothy Hodgkin think if she knew her life and work had been celebrated with a Google Doodle? While she hated the idea of role models, she was happy if people said she’d inspired them or helped them. Plus, she seemed to have a sense of humor and a good outlook on life, so she’d probably smile, knowing she had become a Doodle.
That Google Doodle came out on her birthday in 2014, the Year of Crystallography, as declared by the United Nations. The United Nations resolution stated that its goals for 2014 were, in part, to recognize crystallography as key to understanding the world and to encourage education about crystallography, which impacts everything and could help solve issues of disease and the environment. UNESCO, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, helped to coordinate celebrations that year. Its director general, Irina Bokova, said crystallography “shaped the history of the twentieth century.” Indeed, scientific discoveries and advances due to crystallography have been the reasons for more Nobel Prizes than any other science.
NOT A DAME
When thinking about the awards and honors Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin earned, it’s hard to think beyond the Nobel Prize, which she won for chemistry in 1964. That’s considered one of the top awards in the world, and thus far only four women have received it for chemistry. But other awards Hodgkin received also have lasting effects—and great stories behind the win.
The Order of Merit is the United Kingdom’s highest honor. It’s considered similar to the Congressional Gold Medal in the United States. There’s a twist to the Order of Merit, though—only twenty-four people can hold the honor at any one time. A space opens up only when one of the twenty-four dies. In 1965, Hodgkin became the second woman to receive the Order of Merit. Max Perutz remembered when Hodgkin learned of the honor: an envelope with a return address of Buckingham Palace came in the mail, and she left it sealed. She dreaded the queen wanted to knight her, making her Dame Dorothy. A dame is a female knight. Hodgkin did not like titles, so knighthood wasn’t appealing to her. However, when she finally opened the letter, she saw she was receiving the Order of Merit. Hodgkin was pleased, not to mention relieved. Besides, it was a more prestigious title than a knighthood. It’s said that there are 150 dames or knights to every person who’s been awarded the Order of Merit.
Combine that honor with Hodgkin earning a fellowship of the Royal Society in 1946 and the Royal Society Medal in 1956, and her country has truly shown how much it values her. Today, the Royal Society offers Dorothy Hodgkin fellowships for early-career researchers, ensuring that Hodgkin’s value lives on.
But mere months earlie
r, the US National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) announced that its Protein Structure Initiative (PSI) would end in 2015, fifteen years after it launched. This was a blow to crystallography, which was involved in about 90 percent of the PSI’s projects. The PSI had annual funding from the National Institutes of Health of about $70 million. It had a big goal to match its big budget: to solve protein structures, including, in its last five years, to solve those of the particularly challenging membrane proteins. The PSI supplied about 6.5 percent of the protein structures in the Protein Data Bank, where all information about protein, nucleic acid, and complex assembly structures is housed. It also filled a research gap in what most individual investigator grants fund. Such money usually is awarded to scientists studying proteins that are known to have a lot of biomedical interest. But scientists have a knack for wanting to know what they don’t even know. The PSI emphasized working toward unknown purposes, just to see what discoveries experimentation could make. This was an institute Dorothy Hodgkin most likely would have been a part of had she been alive to do so.
Despite the upsetting news, the Year of Crystallography continued, bringing to light accomplishments in the field. Among them was Dorothy Hodgkin. During her lifetime, she inspired and had contact with many future historical figures and scientists, and her legacy lives on today.
MARGARET THATCHER
The first female prime minister of Britain, Margaret Thatcher, was Hodgkin’s most well-known student. At the time she worked with Hodgkin, she was Margaret Roberts, hardly known at all.
Politically active in college, leading Oxford’s Conservative Association, Thatcher kept her focus on her studies; she earned her chemistry degree and then worked as a research chemist. She started trying to win a political seat only two years after college graduation. During years of trying and failing at that, she married, earned a law degree, and had children. In 1959, a decade after her first political campaign, she was elected to the House of Commons.
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