In 2009 Ada E. Yonath from Israel became the fourth woman ever to be awarded the Nobel prize for chemistry, when she shared it with two other scientists for their work on the structure and function of the ribosome. The only British woman to win this prestigious award was Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin in 1964, for her work with biochemical structures.
Dorothy Mary Crowfoot was born on 12 May 1910 in Cairo, where her father John worked for the Egyptian Education Service. Dorothy was the oldest of four sisters. The girls lived primarily in Egypt until the outbreak of the First World War, returning to England in 1914 under the care of their grandparents near Worthing. They spent a large amount of time away from their parents, staying with friends or relatives back in England. During this time Dorothy began to take her position of oldest sister seriously, with a feeling of responsibility that grew over future years. Dorothy seemed to have thrived without her parents, against all the odds.
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