Google doodles molecular structure for Dorothy Hodgkin's 104th Birthday

Today, Google celebrates British chemist Dorothy Hodgkin’s 104th birthday with a Doodle. She is particularly known to discover three-dimensional biomolecular structures. Hodgkin had discovered the molecular structure of vitamin B12 and bagged the Nobel prize in Chemistry. At that time, she was the third woman to win the prize.

Hodgkin was also known for enhancement of X-ray crystallography technique. It is a method to determine the three-dimensional structures of biomolecules. She used large punch-card operated tabulators to analyse the patterns by reflected X-rays. One of her most influential discoveries is the confirmation of the structure of penicillin. The Google Doodle shows the same structure, which is also on display in the Science Museum in London.

Born on May 12, 1910 in Cairo, Egypt as Dorothy Mary Crowfoot , she had a passion for chemistry from a young age. She had started studying chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford at the age of 13. In 1937, she married Thomas Lionel Hodgkin.

When Hodgkin turned 24, she began experiencing pain in her hands and was later diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. In July 1994, she died due to cardiac stroke at her home in Warwickshire.