Hodgkin announced the full structure of vitamin B12, one of the most complex non-protein molecules ever solved by X-ray crystallography.
In October 1955, Dorothy Hodgkin announced the successful determination of the complete molecular structure of vitamin B12, one of the largest and most complex non-protein molecules ever elucidated by X-ray crystallography at that time.
Vitamin B12 is essential for red blood cell formation and neurological function; its deficiency causes pernicious anemia, a once-fatal disease. Although the vitamin had been isolated in pure form in 1948, its precise structure—including a complex corrin ring encircling a central cobalt atom—remained unknown due to its extraordinary molecular complexity, far exceeding anything previously solved by crystallographic methods.
Hodgkin's solution required years of painstaking data collection and mathematical analysis, and she was among the first scientists to use early electronic computers to help process the vast amounts of diffraction data the molecule generated, pioneering computational crystallography techniques that would become standard practice.
The determination of B12's structure was hailed internationally as a triumph of scientific method, demonstrating that X-ray crystallography could unravel molecules of biological complexity previously thought unapproachable. It directly informed later industrial synthesis of the vitamin and deepened scientific understanding of cobalt-containing biomolecules, and was specifically cited by the Nobel Committee in 1964 when awarding her the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.