A NOBEL Pize winning chemist has given her name to a new £9 million building at the University of York.

The university's chemistry department has chosen to name a new building, which will focus on world-leading advances in chemistry, after Professor Dorothy Hodgkin.

Prof Hodgkin carried out pioneering work on the structures of antibiotics, vitamins and proteins including insulin and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964.

One of the UK's most outstanding scientists of the 20th century, Prof Hodgkin completed her pioneering research on the molecular structure of insulin at York.

She visited the University of York frequently between 1976 and 1988 at the invitation of chemistry department academics Guy and Eleanor Dodson, who worked with her on her research at Oxford University.

The new building will house eight research groups and its focal point is a central laboratory housing a battery of mass spectrometers.

The research groups' work is hugely varied and includes analysis of the chemistry of the atmosphere and metal poisons in sheep to study of the synthesis of natural products for use in the development of new antibiotics and anti-cancer drugs.

Naming the new building marks an enduring link between Professor Hodgkin and York as it is built on the site of the laboratory where in her retirement in the 1970s and 1980s, she wrote up the findings of more than 30 years of research.

Professor Hodgkin, who died in 1994, was a familiar sight in the chemistry department's old D block, which was demolished to make way for the building that now bears her name. She lectured at York and was awarded an honorary degree by the university.

The chemistry department has 46 full-time members of staff, more than 380 undergraduate students, 150 graduates and 90 research fellows.

The head of chemistry, Professor Paul Walton, said: "Research on insulin structures continues to this day in this department.

"Dorothy Hodgkin's name on this new building serves as both a testament to her vision and an incentive to those who follow to strive to emulate her achievements."

University Vice-chancellor Professor Brian Cantor said: "The chemistry building has many wonderful features, but its main strength is the people who work there - people who, like Dorothy Hodgkin, will make a real difference to society."

Updated: 11:13 Wednesday, February 09, 2005