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Dorothy Hodgkin, one of the main founders of protein crystallography, possessed a unique mixture of skills that allowed her to extend the use of X-rays to reveal the structures of compounds that were far more complex than anything attempted before. Victory in Europe Day in Oxford, 8 May 1945. The war in Europe was over, and thousands of people lined the streets to celebrate. One woman making her way through the cheering crowds had even more reason to be triumphant. Dorothy Hodgkin held in her hands a model of wires and corks so frail she struggled to protect it from the celebrations, yet the information within this model would help to protect many of these people, and countless more, in years to come. Hodgkin had just solved the structure of penicillin, and not even a crowd of thousands could have prevented her from getting to the nearby Dunn School of Pathology to show her discovery to an equally excited colleague, Ernst Chain. Read more by clicking the link in bio. Photo: University of Bristol, CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons #NobelPrize #womeninscience #chemistry