Endless Facts, One Snippet at a Time
Women Chemists Who Shaped Science Against the Odds
- Marie Curie pioneered radioactivity research, becoming the first person to win two Nobel Prizes.
- Rosalind Franklin captured the X-ray image that revealed DNA’s double-helix structure.
- Dorothy Hodgkin used X-ray crystallography to solve structures of penicillin, insulin, and vitamin B12.
- Gerty Cori was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in Medicine for her work on carbohydrate metabolism.
- Irène Joliot-Curie, daughter of Marie, co-discovered artificial radioactivity, expanding nuclear science.
- Chien-Shiung Wu, though a physicist by training, made critical contributions to nuclear chemistry experiments.
- Ellen Swallow Richards founded the field of home chemistry and pioneered sanitary engineering.
- Mildred Cohn advanced biochemical research using isotopes to study enzyme reactions.
- Ada Yonath won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for revealing the structure of ribosomes.
- These women overcame barriers of gender bias, proving perseverance and brilliance can reshape science.