Thirty-Four Years for One Structure: Dorothy Hodgkin and Insulin

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was handed a small bottle of insulin crystals in 1934 and began photographing them with X-rays. The pictures showed a pattern of spots that encoded where every atom sat, but nobody could decode them yet. It would take 34 years.

Why it took so long

X-ray crystallography gives you the intensities of spots but not their phases, and without the phases you cannot compute a picture. Insulin has hundreds of atoms. Each added a lot of calculation, and she was working before electronic computers existed.

The breakthroughs

Hodgkin won the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for earlier structures, including penicillin and vitamin B12. Computers eventually caught up, and in 1969 her team published the insulin structure, showing six insulin molecules gathered around zinc ions.

The lesson

Sequence tells you the order; structure tells you the shape. A peptide such as Nasal BPC-157 10mg is short enough to be flexible, so crystals are difficult, but the principle that shape follows sequence is the one she proved.

Keep this in mind

• First crystal: 1935. Finished structure: 1969.
• Zinc held six insulins together.
• Patience was the technique.

Explore Lucid Aminos

• Shop all research compounds
• Read the lab reports (COA)
• Frequently asked questions
• Partner program
• About Lucid Aminos
• Contact us

For laboratory research use only. Not for human or veterinary use, and not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition. This article is educational and is not medical advice.