Dorothy Hodgkin

Dorothy Hodgkin, a chemist, pushed X-ray crystallography into ever larger biological molecules, solving the structures of penicillin in the 1940s, vitamin B12, for which she won the 1964 Nobel prize in chemistry, and finally insulin in 1969 after 35 years of work. Each solved structure had medical uses. She worked with a large team of students and colleagues and early computers to handle the calculations.