X-ray crystallography: one century of Nobel Prizes

In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2014 the International Year of Crystallography. Throughout the year 2014 and beyond, all the crystallographic associations and societies active all over the world are organizing events to attract the wider public toward crystallography and the numerous topics to which it is deeply interlinked. To increase awareness of modern crystallography and to diminish its halo of exoticism, the present commentary focuses on the fundamental contributions of X-ray crystallography during the last century in chemistry, physics, and medicine, as witnessed by the numerous Nobel Prizes that involved it.