Molecular model of penicillin by Dorothy M Crowfoot Hodgkin, England, 1945




















Penicillin; molecular model by Dorothy Hodgkin, ca. 1945.
Penicillin was successful as an antibiotic and treatment for infection well before scientists knew its chemical nature. Chemist and crystallographer Dorothy M Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994) used large punch-card operated tabulators, predecessor to the computer, to help analyse the patterns cast by reflected X-rays. This technique is known as X-ray crystallography.
Hodgkin later won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964 “for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances”.
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Science Museum: Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries
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Details
- Category:
- Biotechnology
- Object Number:
- 1996-686
- Materials:
- paint, paper (fibre product), pine (wood), plastic (unidentified), steel (metal), wood (unidentified)
- type:
- penicillin, molecular model
- taxonomy:
-
- visual and verbal communication
- model - representation
- credit:
- Luke Hodgkin
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