WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.139 Look at a standard antibiotic pill. It just looks 00:00:04.139 --> 00:00:07.419 like a tiny, unremarkable piece of chalk. Right, 00:00:07.639 --> 00:00:10.039 completely ordinary. But inside that little white 00:00:10.039 --> 00:00:13.759 tablet is a... Well, that's a microscopic architectural 00:00:13.759 --> 00:00:16.780 marvel. It's this very specific three -dimensional 00:00:16.780 --> 00:00:20.559 geometric shape that literally, physically locks 00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:23.000 into the bacteria in your body and destroys it. 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:25.399 Exactly. It's all about the shape. Yeah. And 00:00:25.399 --> 00:00:28.600 today, our mission is to uncover the story of 00:00:28.600 --> 00:00:30.839 the person who actually drew the blueprints for 00:00:30.839 --> 00:00:33.060 that invisible world. Oh, it's such a good story. 00:00:33.119 --> 00:00:35.700 It really is. We are taking a deep dive into 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:39.219 a comprehensive dossier on Dorothy Hodgkin. She 00:00:39.219 --> 00:00:41.880 remains the only British woman to ever win a 00:00:41.880 --> 00:00:44.320 Nobel Prize in any of the sciences, which is 00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:46.899 just wild. Still the only one. Still the only 00:00:46.899 --> 00:00:49.280 one. This is a woman who successfully mapped 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:51.439 the invisible architecture of the world's most 00:00:51.439 --> 00:00:53.780 important, life -saving drugs. Like penicillin 00:00:53.780 --> 00:00:56.159 and insulin. Exactly. And she did all of this 00:00:56.159 --> 00:00:58.700 while battling a severely debilitating physical 00:00:58.700 --> 00:01:00.979 disability and, you know, navigating the incredibly 00:01:00.979 --> 00:01:03.280 tense, politically charged minefields of the 00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:06.560 Cold War. Yeah, to truly understand the macroscopic 00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:10.280 effects of modern medicine, like why a drug actually 00:01:10.280 --> 00:01:12.579 cures you, you first have to understand the microscopic 00:01:12.579 --> 00:01:16.379 geometry of atoms. And Dorothy Hodgkin was... 00:01:15.930 --> 00:01:18.769 Without exaggeration, I mean, she was the ultimate 00:01:18.769 --> 00:01:21.370 cartographer of that invisible landscape. Which 00:01:21.370 --> 00:01:24.709 is fascinating because her story actually starts 00:01:24.709 --> 00:01:27.969 with physical, tangible history before moving 00:01:27.969 --> 00:01:29.870 into the invisible. Oh, you mean her childhood? 00:01:30.030 --> 00:01:32.989 Yeah, exactly. So she was born Dorothy Mary Crowfoot 00:01:32.989 --> 00:01:36.930 in Cairo in 1910. Her parents were archaeologists 00:01:36.930 --> 00:01:40.430 and colonial administrators. Right. But her childhood 00:01:40.430 --> 00:01:43.849 was immediately disrupted. I mean, in 1914, World 00:01:43.849 --> 00:01:46.760 War I breaks out. And at just four years old, 00:01:46.939 --> 00:01:49.180 she is separated from her parents. That's so 00:01:49.180 --> 00:01:51.659 young. I know, right? She's left with her grandparents 00:01:51.659 --> 00:01:53.640 in England while her parents eventually end up 00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:56.260 in Sudan. You have to imagine the profound sense 00:01:56.260 --> 00:01:58.299 of dislocation for a child going through that. 00:01:58.400 --> 00:02:00.670 Yeah, definitely. But, you know, it's actually 00:02:00.670 --> 00:02:02.569 during this separation that she starts looking 00:02:02.569 --> 00:02:05.390 very closely at the physical world around her. 00:02:05.670 --> 00:02:08.810 How so? Well, by age 10, she's developing this 00:02:08.810 --> 00:02:12.069 really deep fascination with crystals. She and 00:02:12.069 --> 00:02:14.129 her sister are actually out studying pebbles 00:02:14.129 --> 00:02:17.189 and streams with a portable mineral analysis 00:02:17.189 --> 00:02:20.530 kit. Wow, a portable kit at 10 years old. Yeah. 00:02:21.189 --> 00:02:23.490 And her mother, who was a botanist yourself, 00:02:24.169 --> 00:02:26.659 actively encourages this. That's awesome. It 00:02:26.659 --> 00:02:29.780 is. On Dorothy's 16th birthday, her mother gives 00:02:29.780 --> 00:02:33.020 her a book by W .H. Bragg called Concerning the 00:02:33.020 --> 00:02:36.479 Nature of Things. And this book is all about 00:02:36.479 --> 00:02:38.979 x -ray crystallography. It basically planted 00:02:38.979 --> 00:02:42.580 the seed that atoms aren't just abstract ideas, 00:02:42.740 --> 00:02:44.680 you know. Right. They're not just math equations. 00:02:44.919 --> 00:02:46.740 Exactly. They're physical objects that can be 00:02:46.740 --> 00:02:49.340 located and mapped out. And that is exactly the 00:02:49.340 --> 00:02:52.139 field she would go on to pioneer. But the path 00:02:52.139 --> 00:02:54.560 into academia was incredibly frustrating for 00:02:54.560 --> 00:02:56.319 her. Oh, the institutional roadblocks. Yeah, 00:02:56.319 --> 00:02:59.080 it was ridiculous. She attended the Lehman Grammar 00:02:59.080 --> 00:03:01.319 School, where she was one of only two girls even 00:03:01.319 --> 00:03:04.719 allowed to study chemistry. Wow, two. Just two. 00:03:05.139 --> 00:03:07.479 And when it came time to apply to Oxford, she 00:03:07.479 --> 00:03:10.539 hit this massive barrier. Her state school didn't 00:03:10.539 --> 00:03:13.080 teach Latin to girls. Right, because obviously 00:03:13.080 --> 00:03:15.659 you need a dead language to understand. chemical 00:03:15.659 --> 00:03:18.599 structure. Exactly. It perfectly highlights the 00:03:18.599 --> 00:03:21.139 completely arbitrary barriers for women in science 00:03:21.139 --> 00:03:23.580 at the time. It really does. Thankfully, her 00:03:23.580 --> 00:03:26.139 headmaster steps in and privately tutors her 00:03:26.139 --> 00:03:28.860 in Latin just so she can pass the Oxbridge entrance 00:03:28.860 --> 00:03:31.060 exam. That's a great head, man. Yeah, seriously. 00:03:31.599 --> 00:03:33.919 But before she actually goes to Oxford in 1928, 00:03:34.039 --> 00:03:36.180 she joins her parents at an archaeological site 00:03:36.180 --> 00:03:38.560 in Drosh. That's in present -day Jordan, right? 00:03:38.819 --> 00:03:42.620 Exactly. And she spends over a year there. creating 00:03:42.620 --> 00:03:46.840 these really precise scale drawings of fifth 00:03:46.840 --> 00:03:50.520 and sixth century Byzantine mosaics. Just meticulously 00:03:50.520 --> 00:03:53.340 drawing them. Yes. Okay, let's unpack this. She's 00:03:53.340 --> 00:03:56.219 mapping out thousands of tiny fragmented glass 00:03:56.219 --> 00:03:59.539 tiles to reveal a larger hidden picture. To me, 00:03:59.580 --> 00:04:01.439 that sounds literally like the perfect training 00:04:01.439 --> 00:04:03.319 ground for X -ray crystallography, isn't it? 00:04:03.520 --> 00:04:05.960 Just swapping out ancient mosaic tiles for atomic 00:04:05.960 --> 00:04:08.680 structures. That analogy is incredibly accurate, 00:04:08.680 --> 00:04:11.259 actually. X -ray crystallography is entirely 00:04:11.259 --> 00:04:14.360 about recognizing complex three -dimensional 00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:17.620 spatial patterns from scattered fragmented data. 00:04:17.980 --> 00:04:21.019 So it's basically puzzle solving. Exactly. Think 00:04:21.019 --> 00:04:24.379 of it like this. Imagine shining a flashlight 00:04:24.379 --> 00:04:26.959 through a spinning disco ball in a dark room. 00:04:27.420 --> 00:04:29.759 Okay, I'm picturing it. You can't actually see 00:04:29.759 --> 00:04:32.879 the disco ball itself, right? But you can see 00:04:32.879 --> 00:04:35.680 the thousands of tiny dots of light it scatters 00:04:35.680 --> 00:04:38.139 all over the walls. Right, the reflections. Right. 00:04:38.139 --> 00:04:41.000 So in crystallography, you shine an X -ray beam 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:43.660 through a crystallized molecule. The atoms in 00:04:43.660 --> 00:04:46.800 the crystal cause the X -rays to diffract or 00:04:46.800 --> 00:04:50.459 scatter in very specific directions. So by measuring 00:04:50.459 --> 00:04:52.720 the angles and the brightness of all those scattered 00:04:52.720 --> 00:04:54.759 dots of light on the wall, you basically have 00:04:54.759 --> 00:04:57.360 to mathematically work backward. Precisely. To 00:04:57.360 --> 00:04:59.500 figure out the exact shape of the disco ball 00:04:59.500 --> 00:05:03.100 that cast them. Exactly. You are reverse engineering 00:05:03.100 --> 00:05:05.660 the position of every single atom based purely 00:05:05.660 --> 00:05:08.319 on the shadow it casts. That sounds impossibly 00:05:08.319 --> 00:05:12.360 tedious. It was. But the meticulous, obsessive 00:05:12.360 --> 00:05:14.800 attention to detail she developed, measuring 00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:18.120 and drawing those mosaic tiles, that perfectly 00:05:18.120 --> 00:05:20.720 primed her brain for the groundbreaking structural 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:22.980 chemistry she would later do at Oxford and Cambridge. 00:05:23.279 --> 00:05:26.740 And that specific wiring, the ability to see 00:05:26.740 --> 00:05:28.839 the objective picture through all the static. 00:05:29.449 --> 00:05:32.009 That is exactly what she needed to shock the 00:05:32.009 --> 00:05:34.689 scientific establishment in the 1940s. The penicillin 00:05:34.689 --> 00:05:37.389 breakthrough. Yeah. So Alexander Fleming had 00:05:37.389 --> 00:05:39.670 discovered penicillin. Howard Flory and Ernst 00:05:39.670 --> 00:05:41.970 Chain figured out how to isolate it. Right. But 00:05:41.970 --> 00:05:43.910 nobody actually knew what the molecule looked 00:05:43.910 --> 00:05:45.870 like. And until you know what it looks like, 00:05:45.970 --> 00:05:48.370 you can't truly understand how it works or how 00:05:48.370 --> 00:05:50.930 to mass produce it. Penicillin was a biological 00:05:50.930 --> 00:05:54.189 miracle, sure. But structurally, it was a complete 00:05:54.189 --> 00:05:58.519 mystery. Right. In 1945, Hodgkin and her team, 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:02.319 which included biochemist Barbara Lowe, they 00:06:02.319 --> 00:06:04.420 finally solved its structure. And what they found 00:06:04.420 --> 00:06:07.519 was highly controversial, right? Very. She demonstrated 00:06:07.519 --> 00:06:09.660 that penicillin contained a specific structural 00:06:09.660 --> 00:06:12.279 feature called a beta -lactam ring. Okay, here's 00:06:12.279 --> 00:06:14.339 where it gets really interesting. I need to pause 00:06:14.339 --> 00:06:17.360 you there because the sources note that the top 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:19.360 chemists in the world thought this ring structure 00:06:19.360 --> 00:06:21.500 was completely impossible. They absolutely did. 00:06:21.680 --> 00:06:24.060 Wait, so she proved the scientific consensus 00:06:24.060 --> 00:06:26.750 wrong. How does the establishment react when 00:06:26.750 --> 00:06:29.529 a young female chemist tells them they have the 00:06:29.529 --> 00:06:32.449 basic structural shape of this miracle drug completely 00:06:32.449 --> 00:06:35.509 wrong? And what exactly is a beta -lactam ring 00:06:35.509 --> 00:06:39.269 anyway? Okay, so a beta -lactam ring is essentially 00:06:39.269 --> 00:06:43.009 a tight four -membered square of atoms, specifically 00:06:43.009 --> 00:06:46.560 carbon and nitrogen. Okay, a square. Right. But 00:06:46.560 --> 00:06:48.980 normally, these atoms want to bond at comfortable, 00:06:48.980 --> 00:06:52.279 wide angles. Forcing them into a tight 90 -degree 00:06:52.279 --> 00:06:55.060 square creates immense geometric strain. Like 00:06:55.060 --> 00:06:57.959 trying to bend stiff wood. Exactly. It's like 00:06:57.959 --> 00:07:00.379 trying to bend thick wood into a tiny, sharp 00:07:00.379 --> 00:07:02.920 -angled box without it snapping. The leading 00:07:02.920 --> 00:07:05.230 chemical minds of the era believed that forcing 00:07:05.230 --> 00:07:07.750 atoms into that shape created too much inherent 00:07:07.750 --> 00:07:09.629 instability. They just thought it was physically 00:07:09.629 --> 00:07:11.610 impossible. Yeah, they thought nature simply 00:07:11.610 --> 00:07:13.610 couldn't build something so inherently fragile. 00:07:13.829 --> 00:07:16.110 But Hodgkin trusted her data, right? I mean, 00:07:16.149 --> 00:07:18.269 the electron density map she generated through 00:07:18.269 --> 00:07:22.009 her X -rays didn't lie. They didn't. She essentially 00:07:22.009 --> 00:07:23.990 proved that the entire chemical establishment 00:07:23.990 --> 00:07:26.389 was working off a fundamentally flawed assumption. 00:07:26.730 --> 00:07:30.089 Her map was undeniable. And ironically, that 00:07:30.089 --> 00:07:32.990 exact instability is why penicillin actually 00:07:32.990 --> 00:07:35.509 works. Wait, really? The instability is the point? 00:07:35.709 --> 00:07:39.430 Yeah. The ring is under so much physical strain 00:07:39.430 --> 00:07:42.230 that when it encounters a bacteria, it bursts 00:07:42.230 --> 00:07:45.750 open and binds to the bacterial cell wall, completely 00:07:45.750 --> 00:07:48.350 destroying it. That is fascinating. So it's like 00:07:48.350 --> 00:07:50.990 a loaded spring. Exactly like a loaded spring. 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:53.519 And once our beta -lactam ring was accepted, 00:07:53.779 --> 00:07:55.560 it completely opened the door for pharmaceutical 00:07:55.560 --> 00:07:58.800 companies to develop whole new classes of synthetic 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:02.579 antibiotics. But that stubbornness, that refusal 00:08:02.579 --> 00:08:05.040 to accept the establishment's flawed assumptions, 00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:07.620 that was exactly what she needed for her next 00:08:07.620 --> 00:08:10.980 target. Oh, vitamin B12. Yes. Because if penicillin 00:08:10.980 --> 00:08:14.259 was a puzzle, vitamin B12 was an absolute labyrinth. 00:08:14.360 --> 00:08:17.920 B12 is a massive, highly complex molecule. Just 00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:19.639 to give you a sense of scale. Give me the numbers. 00:08:20.060 --> 00:08:23.160 Penicillin has around 40 atoms. Vitamin B12 has 00:08:23.160 --> 00:08:26.980 over 180 atoms. Wow. That's a huge jump. It really 00:08:26.980 --> 00:08:29.459 is. It had been discovered at Merck, and they 00:08:29.459 --> 00:08:31.740 had actually managed to crystallize it, but they'd 00:08:31.740 --> 00:08:34.500 only published its refractive indices. OK, what 00:08:34.500 --> 00:08:36.659 does that actually mean, a refractive index? 00:08:36.820 --> 00:08:38.899 Well, a refractive index just tells you how much 00:08:38.899 --> 00:08:42.059 light slows down and bends when it enters a substance. 00:08:42.259 --> 00:08:44.440 Like when a straw looks bent in a glass of water. 00:08:44.620 --> 00:08:47.269 Exactly that. It's a basic physical property 00:08:47.269 --> 00:08:49.669 of the material, but it tells you absolutely 00:08:49.669 --> 00:08:52.710 nothing about where the individual atoms are 00:08:52.710 --> 00:08:54.889 actually located in three -dimensional space. 00:08:55.190 --> 00:08:57.409 So it's basically useless for a structural map? 00:08:57.629 --> 00:09:01.330 Pretty much. Almost all of the 180 atoms in B12 00:09:01.330 --> 00:09:04.529 were completely unaccounted for, except for a 00:09:04.529 --> 00:09:07.389 single heavy atom of cobalt right at its center. 00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:10.559 Just one atom out of 180. So how do you even 00:09:10.559 --> 00:09:13.539 begin to map something that chaotic? By using 00:09:13.539 --> 00:09:16.059 every observational tool available. She first 00:09:16.059 --> 00:09:18.220 studied the pleochroic properties of the B12 00:09:18.220 --> 00:09:20.419 crystals. Pleochroic. Yeah, pleochroism is an 00:09:20.419 --> 00:09:22.960 optical phenomenon where a substance appears 00:09:22.960 --> 00:09:24.559 to be different colors when you look at it from 00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:27.139 different angles. Oh, like a gemstone changing 00:09:27.139 --> 00:09:30.019 color. Right. So by carefully observing how the 00:09:30.019 --> 00:09:32.679 crystals absorbed light and changed color, she 00:09:32.679 --> 00:09:35.379 deduced that there had to be a flat, ring -like 00:09:35.379 --> 00:09:38.139 structure hiding inside this massive molecule. 00:09:38.519 --> 00:09:41.179 Okay, so she finds a starting point. Exactly. 00:09:41.960 --> 00:09:45.539 She then used X -ray crystallography, using that 00:09:45.539 --> 00:09:48.659 heavy cobalt atom as a sort of structural anchor, 00:09:49.279 --> 00:09:52.679 to painstakingly calculate the position of all 00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:54.519 the other atoms around it. And the scientific 00:09:54.519 --> 00:09:56.899 community's reaction to this was monumental. 00:09:57.080 --> 00:09:59.419 I mean, the scientist Lawrence Bragg, the very 00:09:59.419 --> 00:10:01.539 man who wrote the book, her mother gave her. 00:10:01.700 --> 00:10:03.980 The inventor of X -ray crystallography himself. 00:10:04.259 --> 00:10:07.419 Right. He described her solving of the B12 structure 00:10:07.419 --> 00:10:10.440 as being as significant as breaking the sound 00:10:10.440 --> 00:10:13.039 barrier. It completely shattered the existing 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:16.360 limits of biochemistry. How so? Well before Hodgkin, 00:10:16.740 --> 00:10:18.840 the consensus was that these incredibly large 00:10:18.840 --> 00:10:21.580 chaotic biological molecules were simply too 00:10:21.580 --> 00:10:23.460 complex to map. They just thought it couldn't 00:10:23.460 --> 00:10:26.559 be done. Yeah. But by publishing the final structure 00:10:26.559 --> 00:10:30.960 of B12 in 1955 and 1956, she proved that no molecule 00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:33.299 was too large to decode if you had the right 00:10:33.299 --> 00:10:35.340 mathematical discipline. And that was the primary 00:10:35.340 --> 00:10:37.419 discovery that won her the Nobel Prize in chemistry 00:10:37.419 --> 00:10:40.259 in 1964, right? Yes, exactly. And incredibly, 00:10:40.460 --> 00:10:42.700 B12 wasn't even her biggest challenge. Not even 00:10:42.700 --> 00:10:46.139 close. Right. If B12 was breaking the sound barrier, 00:10:46.620 --> 00:10:49.059 her next major project was her moon landing. 00:10:49.399 --> 00:10:51.980 It was a goal so distant that it took almost 00:10:51.980 --> 00:10:55.179 her entire adult life to achieve. We are talking 00:10:55.179 --> 00:10:57.659 about insulin. The hormone that regulates blood 00:10:57.659 --> 00:11:00.379 sugar. Exactly. I mean, it is the absolute difference 00:11:00.379 --> 00:11:02.860 between life and death for millions of people 00:11:02.860 --> 00:11:05.539 managing diabetes. She was actually given her 00:11:05.539 --> 00:11:08.480 first small sample of crystalline insulin way 00:11:08.480 --> 00:11:11.200 back in 1934 by the chemist Robert Robinson. 00:11:11.519 --> 00:11:14.759 Wait, 1934. That is before she solved penicillin. 00:11:14.879 --> 00:11:18.519 Before B12, she held onto this molecule for 35 00:11:18.519 --> 00:11:20.940 years before finally publishing its structure 00:11:20.940 --> 00:11:24.220 in 1969. Why did it take over three decades? 00:11:24.299 --> 00:11:26.019 Because the mathematical computing power of the 00:11:26.019 --> 00:11:28.559 1930s simply wasn't advanced enough. Oh, she 00:11:28.559 --> 00:11:30.179 had the data but couldn't crunch the numbers. 00:11:30.500 --> 00:11:32.840 Exactly. Insulin is a protein. It is vastly more 00:11:32.840 --> 00:11:35.519 complex than even vitamin B12. Wow. When you 00:11:35.519 --> 00:11:37.539 shine an x -ray through an insulin crystal, it 00:11:37.539 --> 00:11:40.379 produces millions of scattered data points. The 00:11:40.379 --> 00:11:43.000 sheer volume of mathematical calculations required 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:45.620 to translate that matrix of spatial data into 00:11:45.620 --> 00:11:48.759 a 3D model, it was completely beyond human capacity. 00:11:48.960 --> 00:11:51.279 Like, it would take a person doing it by hand 00:11:51.279 --> 00:11:54.279 centuries. Literally centuries. She had to wait 00:11:54.279 --> 00:11:56.600 for the invention of high -speed digital computers 00:11:56.600 --> 00:12:00.639 that could crunch those massive matrices of spatial 00:12:00.639 --> 00:12:04.279 data in minutes. rather than lifetimes. So what 00:12:04.279 --> 00:12:06.700 does this all mean? Like, why should you, the 00:12:06.700 --> 00:12:09.299 listener, care about the physical shape of insulin? 00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:12.480 It's a game changer. It is. Having that 3D map 00:12:12.480 --> 00:12:15.899 changed everything. Before Hodgkin, we knew insulin 00:12:15.899 --> 00:12:18.759 worked, but we were essentially extracting it 00:12:18.759 --> 00:12:21.240 from animals like pigs and cows and just hoping 00:12:21.240 --> 00:12:23.899 for the best. Right, which wasn't ideal. No. 00:12:24.080 --> 00:12:26.860 Her 3D map was like having the exact blueprints 00:12:26.860 --> 00:12:29.679 to a locked vault. Once she gave us those blueprints, 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:32.299 scientists could suddenly see exactly how the 00:12:32.299 --> 00:12:34.320 molecule folded. And then they could mass produce 00:12:34.320 --> 00:12:36.779 it synthetically. Exactly. They could alter its 00:12:36.779 --> 00:12:39.340 structure to create the faster acting or slower 00:12:39.340 --> 00:12:41.539 acting variants that are used to manage diabetes 00:12:41.539 --> 00:12:45.419 today. actions after solving insulin tell you 00:12:45.419 --> 00:12:47.120 everything you need to know about her philosophy 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:48.919 as a scientist. Oh, absolutely. Because many 00:12:48.919 --> 00:12:50.940 researchers would fiercely guard a discovery 00:12:50.940 --> 00:12:53.700 of that magnitude. They would patent it, hoard 00:12:53.700 --> 00:12:56.279 the data, monetize it. Of course they would. 00:12:56.679 --> 00:12:59.120 But Hodgkin did the exact opposite. She had led 00:12:59.120 --> 00:13:02.179 a team of young international scientists to solve 00:13:02.179 --> 00:13:05.379 it. And then she spent the following years traveling 00:13:05.379 --> 00:13:08.159 the globe, openly cooperating with other laboratories 00:13:08.159 --> 00:13:11.139 and giving talks. just giving the data away. 00:13:11.259 --> 00:13:13.799 Yeah, to ensure her structural map was used to 00:13:13.799 --> 00:13:16.940 actually treat both type 1 and type 2 diabetes 00:13:16.940 --> 00:13:20.320 globally. Which brings us to a really grueling 00:13:20.320 --> 00:13:22.830 reality of her life. We've been talking about 00:13:22.830 --> 00:13:24.850 the immense scale of her scientific achievements, 00:13:25.210 --> 00:13:27.350 but we have to look at the physical toll it took 00:13:27.350 --> 00:13:30.190 to make them. It was significant. Yeah. When 00:13:30.190 --> 00:13:33.009 she was just 24 years old, right around the time 00:13:33.009 --> 00:13:35.970 she first got that insulin sample, she was diagnosed 00:13:35.970 --> 00:13:38.409 with severe rheumatoid arthritis. And we should 00:13:38.409 --> 00:13:41.169 clarify, rheumatoid arthritis isn't just standard 00:13:41.169 --> 00:13:43.769 joint wear and tear. Right. It is an autoimmune 00:13:43.769 --> 00:13:46.230 condition where the body attacks its own joints. 00:13:46.519 --> 00:13:49.759 Her hands and feet became severely swollen and 00:13:49.759 --> 00:13:52.659 visibly deformed. That sounds incredibly painful. 00:13:53.120 --> 00:13:55.879 She experienced prolonged debilitating pain. 00:13:56.759 --> 00:13:59.200 And for a scientist whose entire life's work 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:02.379 relies on the delicate manipulation of microscopic 00:14:02.379 --> 00:14:05.019 crystals. I mean, it is an incredibly cruel irony. 00:14:05.120 --> 00:14:08.120 It really is. Imagine trying to manipulate microscopic 00:14:08.120 --> 00:14:10.480 crystals when your hands are so swollen you can't 00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:13.059 even flip a standard switch. Like trying to thread 00:14:13.059 --> 00:14:15.720 a tiny needle while wearing thick, heavy winter 00:14:15.720 --> 00:14:18.720 gloves. That was her daily reality in the lab. 00:14:18.940 --> 00:14:21.720 She had to mount fraction of a millimeter crystals 00:14:21.720 --> 00:14:24.279 onto glass capillaries when her hands were so 00:14:24.279 --> 00:14:25.899 swollen she couldn't even close her fingers. 00:14:26.059 --> 00:14:28.480 She literally had to build a custom lever for 00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:31.159 her x -ray machine just to keep working. Because 00:14:31.159 --> 00:14:33.139 she couldn't grip the standard power switch. 00:14:33.240 --> 00:14:35.659 Right. She couldn't grip it. She spent her later 00:14:35.659 --> 00:14:37.600 years in a wheelchair, but she never stopped. 00:14:38.039 --> 00:14:40.559 Her mind was mapping the perfect geometry of 00:14:40.559 --> 00:14:43.539 life -saving drugs while her own body's architecture 00:14:43.539 --> 00:14:46.759 was actively betraying her. That level of personal 00:14:46.759 --> 00:14:49.580 resilience is just astounding. And, you know, 00:14:49.700 --> 00:14:52.340 that same resilience extended far beyond the 00:14:52.340 --> 00:14:55.139 laboratory, straight into the geopolitical landscape 00:14:55.139 --> 00:14:58.269 of the 20th century. Oh, her political life. 00:14:58.490 --> 00:15:01.509 It was defined by staggering contradictions that 00:15:01.509 --> 00:15:03.649 are just fascinating to look at historically. 00:15:03.710 --> 00:15:06.889 Definitely. We see her navigating massive ideological 00:15:06.889 --> 00:15:10.230 divides without cleanly fitting into any single 00:15:10.230 --> 00:15:13.110 political box. Yet domestically, she was a lifelong 00:15:13.110 --> 00:15:15.750 supporter of the Labor Party. Right. Yet in the 00:15:15.750 --> 00:15:18.730 1940s at Oxford, one of her chemistry students 00:15:18.730 --> 00:15:22.230 was Margaret Roberts, who we know today as Margaret 00:15:22.230 --> 00:15:24.110 Thatcher. Right. The conservative prime minister. 00:15:24.250 --> 00:15:27.200 Exactly. And despite being on completely opposite 00:15:27.200 --> 00:15:29.480 ends of the political spectrum, Thatcher had 00:15:29.480 --> 00:15:32.100 immense respect for her former teacher. When 00:15:32.100 --> 00:15:34.240 Thatcher became prime minister, she actually 00:15:34.240 --> 00:15:36.860 proudly hung a portrait of Hodgkin in her office 00:15:36.860 --> 00:15:40.019 at 10 Downing Street. Which is wild. But internationally, 00:15:40.299 --> 00:15:42.539 her associations caused immense friction with 00:15:42.539 --> 00:15:45.120 Western government. Oh, huge friction. Her mentor, 00:15:45.320 --> 00:15:47.840 the man who taught her crystallography and with 00:15:47.840 --> 00:15:49.720 whom she actually had a romantic relationship 00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:52.440 before her marriage, was J .D. Bernal. And he 00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:55.830 was very vocal. Yes, he was a vocal, open member 00:15:55.830 --> 00:15:58.809 of the Communist Party. Plus, her husband, the 00:15:58.809 --> 00:16:01.029 historian Thomas Hodgkin, was also an intermittent 00:16:01.029 --> 00:16:03.470 member of the Communist Party. And because of 00:16:03.470 --> 00:16:06.549 these deep ties, the geopolitical consequences 00:16:06.549 --> 00:16:11.049 for her were severe. Right. By 1953, the United 00:16:11.049 --> 00:16:13.049 States had completely banned her from entering 00:16:13.049 --> 00:16:15.830 the country as a security risk. Completely banned 00:16:15.830 --> 00:16:17.830 her? Yeah. The only way she could attend scientific 00:16:17.830 --> 00:16:20.509 conferences in the U .S. was by securing a special 00:16:20.509 --> 00:16:23.620 waiver directly from the CIA. Meanwhile, she 00:16:23.620 --> 00:16:27.139 is warmly embraced by the other side of the Iron 00:16:27.139 --> 00:16:28.899 Curtain. Oh yeah, totally different reception. 00:16:29.100 --> 00:16:31.799 She maintains strong collaborative contacts with 00:16:31.799 --> 00:16:34.220 scientists in the Soviet Union and in China, 00:16:34.679 --> 00:16:37.279 visiting China multiple times starting in 1959. 00:16:37.659 --> 00:16:41.779 And in 1987, the Soviet government under Mikhail... 00:16:48.360 --> 00:16:51.279 by the US government as a security risk, awarded 00:16:51.279 --> 00:16:53.820 a Peace Prize by the Soviet Union, and yet her 00:16:53.820 --> 00:16:57.200 portrait is proudly hung in the office of a famously 00:16:57.200 --> 00:16:59.580 conservative British prime minister. That's quite 00:16:59.580 --> 00:17:01.899 the resume. It really is. And I just want to 00:17:01.899 --> 00:17:05.859 pause here and be incredibly clear. We are absolutely 00:17:05.859 --> 00:17:08.680 not taking any political sides here or endorsing 00:17:08.680 --> 00:17:10.940 any of these viewpoints left or right. We're 00:17:10.940 --> 00:17:13.880 simply reporting the wildly fascinating contradictions 00:17:13.880 --> 00:17:17.059 of her life. exactly as documented in the source 00:17:17.059 --> 00:17:19.880 material. Well said. And I think to synthesize 00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:22.640 all of this, you have to understand that Hodgkin's 00:17:22.640 --> 00:17:25.759 core value was simply that knowledge has no borders. 00:17:25.859 --> 00:17:28.059 Yeah, that makes sense. Her political actions, 00:17:28.599 --> 00:17:30.859 like serving for 12 years as the president of 00:17:30.859 --> 00:17:32.619 the Pugwash Conference. Which was fighting for 00:17:32.619 --> 00:17:35.700 nuclear disarmament, right? Exactly. Those actions, 00:17:35.960 --> 00:17:37.920 along with her scientific collaborations in places 00:17:37.920 --> 00:17:41.079 like Moscow and Beijing, were driven by a singular, 00:17:41.480 --> 00:17:44.400 unshakable belief. She fundamentally believed 00:17:44.400 --> 00:17:47.039 that human progress, whether it was curing disease 00:17:47.039 --> 00:17:49.700 or preventing nuclear war, had to transcend the 00:17:49.700 --> 00:17:51.920 artificial geopolitical boundaries created by 00:17:51.920 --> 00:17:54.460 governments. She really lived her life operating 00:17:54.460 --> 00:17:56.940 on a totally different frequency. While governments 00:17:56.940 --> 00:17:59.299 were drawing lines on maps to separate people, 00:17:59.680 --> 00:18:01.539 she was drawing the maps of the molecules that 00:18:01.539 --> 00:18:03.680 keep all of those people alive. That's a beautiful 00:18:03.680 --> 00:18:07.150 way to put it. So, to you listening. The next 00:18:07.150 --> 00:18:09.630 time you take a course in antibiotics or you 00:18:09.630 --> 00:18:11.910 see someone managing their diabetes with an insulin 00:18:11.910 --> 00:18:15.569 pen, think about Dorothy Hodgkin. You are benefiting 00:18:15.569 --> 00:18:18.309 directly from a woman who visualized the invisible 00:18:18.309 --> 00:18:21.529 through sheer intellect, who built custom levers 00:18:21.529 --> 00:18:23.809 when her hands failed her, and who shattered 00:18:23.809 --> 00:18:26.470 both scientific paradigms and international borders 00:18:26.470 --> 00:18:29.309 to share the objective truth of what she found. 00:18:29.470 --> 00:18:32.220 It's an incredible legacy. And yet... You know, 00:18:32.220 --> 00:18:34.700 even a mind entirely dedicated to the objective 00:18:34.700 --> 00:18:38.079 truth can be confronted with profound paradoxes. 00:18:38.319 --> 00:18:39.660 What do you mean? Well, I want to leave you with 00:18:39.660 --> 00:18:42.579 a final thought today. It's a strange historical 00:18:42.579 --> 00:18:44.259 footnote pulled from the sources that we haven't 00:18:44.259 --> 00:18:47.079 touched on yet. Oh, OK. Let's hear it. Late in 00:18:47.079 --> 00:18:50.019 her life, at the age of 73, Hodgkin was asked 00:18:50.019 --> 00:18:52.220 to write a foreword for the English edition of 00:18:52.220 --> 00:18:54.839 a chemistry book about polymers. Just a standard 00:18:54.839 --> 00:18:57.740 textbook. Seemingly. And she wrote this glowing 00:18:57.740 --> 00:19:01.600 introduction, praising the author's quote, outstanding 00:19:01.600 --> 00:19:04.240 achievements and impressive career. Let me guess, 00:19:04.359 --> 00:19:06.380 given her global travels, this wasn't just a 00:19:06.380 --> 00:19:09.240 standard academic colleague from Oxford. Far 00:19:09.240 --> 00:19:13.519 from it. The author was Elena Siascu. Wait, Chascu? 00:19:13.640 --> 00:19:16.680 Like the wife of Romania's brutal communist dictator? 00:19:16.799 --> 00:19:19.539 The very same. And after the Romanian Revolution 00:19:19.539 --> 00:19:22.660 in 1989, when the regime fell, the truth came 00:19:22.660 --> 00:19:25.680 out. Elena Siascu hadn't even finished secondary 00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:28.470 school. Are you serious? Completely serious. 00:19:28.769 --> 00:19:31.349 Her entire scientific career was a fabrication. 00:19:31.849 --> 00:19:34.529 That polymer book had been ghostwritten by a 00:19:34.529 --> 00:19:37.349 team of actual scientists who were forced by 00:19:37.349 --> 00:19:40.150 the state to secure her a fraudulent doctrine. 00:19:40.309 --> 00:19:43.150 Wow. To build a political cult of personality. 00:19:43.390 --> 00:19:45.910 Exactly. That is staggering. A complete hoax. 00:19:46.069 --> 00:19:48.829 It is. And it raises a deeply philosophical question, 00:19:48.849 --> 00:19:50.769 one that I want you to mull over long after we 00:19:50.769 --> 00:19:53.009 wrap up today. Yeah. How is it that one of the 00:19:53.009 --> 00:19:55.690 most brilliant scientific minds in human history 00:19:55.930 --> 00:19:58.670 A woman whose entire legacy was built on looking 00:19:58.670 --> 00:20:01.390 past the surface, penetrating solid matter with 00:20:01.390 --> 00:20:03.950 x -rays to find the absolute undeniable truth 00:20:03.950 --> 00:20:05.930 could have such a massive blind spot when it 00:20:05.930 --> 00:20:08.230 came to a fabricated political and scientific 00:20:08.230 --> 00:20:10.670 persona. That is the ultimate muddy water, isn't 00:20:10.670 --> 00:20:13.369 it? The mathematics of crystallography work perfectly 00:20:13.369 --> 00:20:16.369 on a chaotic molecule, but point that same lens 00:20:16.369 --> 00:20:18.430 at human nature and the picture gets completely 00:20:18.430 --> 00:20:20.970 blurred. Thanks for taking this deep dive with 00:20:20.970 --> 00:20:21.230 us.