One scientist used X-rays to reveal the shape of penicillin, insulin, and vitamin B12

Dorothy Hodgkin spent decades refining X-ray crystallography to map molecules atom by atom, solving the structure of penicillin in 1945, vitamin B12 in 1954, and insulin in 1969 after 35 years of trying. She won the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and remains the only British woman ever to win a science Nobel.

— Georgina Ferry, Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life — Granta Books, 1998
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