The legacy of women to crystallography

© 2015 CSIC. It is common to hear that X-ray crystallography is particularly welcoming to women. This assertion is perhaps based in the crucial contribution that a few brilliant women made to crystallography in the very early days. Therefore, this chapter will be mainly dedicated to honour the exceptional legacy of Kathleen Lonsdale, Dorothy Hodgkin, Rosalind Franklin and Isabella Karle, who were pioneers in a time when there was a strong discrimination against women in all aspects of life. Other prominent women, like Caroline MacGillavry, Olga Kennard, Eleanor Dodson, Louise Johnson, Jenny Glusker, Jane Richardson, among others, contributed to disseminate crystallography worldwide, providing the fundamental tools that resulted in the modern crystallography. The outstanding results that crystallography have provided to life sciences in the last years is well represented by the Nobel Prize awarded to Ada Yonath in 2009 for its contribution to the understanding of ribosome, the largest structure solved up-to-now.Peer Reviewe