After nearly a decade of crystallographic work, Hodgkin and her team solved the complex structure of vitamin B12, revealing its unique corrin ring system.
In 1956, after nearly ten years of painstaking research, Dorothy Hodgkin and her collaborators determined the full three-dimensional structure of vitamin B12, one of the most structurally complex non-polymeric natural molecules known at the time. Vitamin B12 was essential for treating pernicious anemia, but its precise chemical architecture had eluded chemists for years.
Hodgkin's team used X-ray crystallography combined with early electronic computing to process the enormous volume of diffraction data required — among the first major uses of computers in structural chemistry. The resulting structure revealed a novel corrin ring system, a cobalt-containing macrocycle distinct from the porphyrin rings found in hemoglobin and chlorophyll, expanding scientific understanding of naturally occurring macrocyclic compounds.
This achievement was hailed as a triumph of both chemical and computational method, demonstrating that X-ray crystallography could tackle molecules of extraordinary complexity. The vitamin B12 work significantly contributed to Hodgkin being awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964, and it remains one of the most celebrated examples of structural biology's power to illuminate the molecular basis of life and disease. It also showcased Hodgkin's persistence, as the project spanned nearly a decade of dedicated effort by her and her research group at Oxford.