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Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin may be the most famous British scientist of whom most people have never heard. As such, she would be a very appropriate face for the new £50 note, on which the Bank of England wants to feature a picture of a scientist.

Hodgkin was the foremost leader and innovator in her field, and the major impact of her work led to her becoming the only female British scientist to win a Nobel Prize (so far). The 1964 award recognised her work in chemistry using a technique known as X-ray crystallography to find out the three-dimensional shapes of penicillin (1945) and vitamin B12 (1955).

Read the full article on The Conversation website, written by Elspeth Garman, Professor in the Department of Biochemistry. 

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