Hodgkin published a refined, high-resolution three-dimensional structure of insulin, expanding on her 1969 determination.
In September 1988, at the age of 78, Dorothy Hodgkin published a significantly refined, high-resolution structure of insulin, building upon and extending her landmark 1969 determination with far greater atomic detail.
Advances in X-ray crystallographic instrumentation, synchrotron radiation sources, and computational power during the 1970s and 1980s allowed Hodgkin and her collaborators to resolve insulin's structure at a resolution previously unattainable, revealing finer details of the hormone's molecular architecture, including subtle conformational variations relevant to its biological function and its interactions with insulin receptors.
This late-career publication exemplified Hodgkin's lifelong commitment to continual refinement and scientific precision, demonstrating that she remained an active, rigorous researcher well into her seventies, despite the physical toll of decades of rheumatoid arthritis. Her sustained dedication to the insulin problem—spanning more than half a century from her first diffraction photographs in 1934 to this refined structure in 1988—stands as one of the longest continuous research programs by a single scientist in the history of structural biology.
The improved structural detail provided by this work continued to inform pharmaceutical research into insulin analogues and diabetes treatments, underscoring the enduring practical impact of Hodgkin's crystallographic legacy well beyond her Nobel Prize-winning work of the 1960s.