By Pia Ohlin (AFP) – 2 hours ago
STOCKHOLM — Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz of the United States and Ada Yonath of Israel won the Nobel Chemistry Prize on Wednesday for work on the ribosome, a cellular machine that makes proteins, the stuff of life.
The ribosome "reads" DNA and translates the code to make the body's tens of thousands of different proteins, thus building and controlling life at the chemical level.
The Nobel committee said the trio's contribution had been in X-ray crystallography that had generated 3D models, helping to showing the ribosome's individual atomic structure.
These models are now being harnessed by scientists in the quest for new microbe-killing drugs, "directly assisting the saving of lives and decreasing humanity's suffering," the jury said.
"Many of today's antibiotics cure various diseases by blocking the function of bacterial ribosomes," it said.
"Without functional ribosomes, bacteria cannot survive. This is why ribosomes are such an important target for new antibiotics."
The three worked independently of each other yet all published crucial studies on the subject in August and September 2000. List of Nobel Chemistry laureates
"This year's Nobel laureates reached the finishing line almost simultaneously," the jury said.
Yonath, 70, just the fourth woman to win the Nobel Chemistry Prize, told Swedish television by telephone from Israel just moments after the announcement was made in Stockholm that she was delighted to receive the honour.
"I was in my daughter's home in Israel and the first reaction was overwhelming happiness. She is so proud, so this made me even happier," she said.
Yonath, who earned her PhD in X-ray crystallography at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is now a professor of structural biology and biomolecular structure and assembly at the same school.
Steitz said meanwhile he was awake when the early-morning phone call came from Stockholm.
"Fortunately I was about to get up to go to the gym. My caller from Stockholm said I shouldn't go to the gym (because) there would be phone calls," he told Swedish public radio. Profile: Ada Yonath
Steitz did his PhD in molecular biology and biochemistry at Harvard University and is now a professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University in the US.
Indian-born Ramakrishnan, who received his PhD in physics from Ohio University in the US and is now a senior scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, Britain, was meanwhile modest in his first reaction.
"We're only sort of captains of a team, lots of these ideas that led to this work ... was done by really brilliant students and post docs, so in a way, we are really representing all of that effort, representing a large endeavour," he told Swedish radio.
Americans have dominated the Nobel science prizes so far this year.
On Tuesday, the Physics Prize went to Charles Kao, Willard Boyle and George Smith for work on fibre optics and light sensing that helped unleash the Information Technology revolution.
Kao is a British and US citizen, Boyle holds Canadian and US citizenship and Smith is from the US.
And on Monday, the Medicine Prize honoured Australian-American scientist Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider and Jack Szostak of the United States for identifying a key molecular switch in cellular ageing.
The Literature Prize will be announced on Thursday, while the Peace Prize will be announced in Oslo on Friday. The Economics Prize will wrap up the awards back in Stockholm on October 12.
The formal prize ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo will be held as tradition dictates on December 10, the anniversary of the death in 1896 of the prize's creator, Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel.
The prizes were first awarded in 1901.
On the Net:
Nobel Chemistry Prize: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://nobelprize.org/&usg=AFQjCNExsJ4HZ7OriYJvFbBTf758TrxMfQ
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
The ribosome "reads" DNA and translates the code to make the body's tens of thousands of different proteins, thus building and controlling life at the chemical level.
The Nobel committee said the trio's contribution had been in X-ray crystallography that had generated 3D models, helping to showing the ribosome's individual atomic structure.
These models are now being harnessed by scientists in the quest for new microbe-killing drugs, "directly assisting the saving of lives and decreasing humanity's suffering," the jury said.
"Many of today's antibiotics cure various diseases by blocking the function of bacterial ribosomes," it said.
"Without functional ribosomes, bacteria cannot survive. This is why ribosomes are such an important target for new antibiotics."
The three worked independently of each other yet all published crucial studies on the subject in August and September 2000. List of Nobel Chemistry laureates
"This year's Nobel laureates reached the finishing line almost simultaneously," the jury said.
Yonath, 70, just the fourth woman to win the Nobel Chemistry Prize, told Swedish television by telephone from Israel just moments after the announcement was made in Stockholm that she was delighted to receive the honour.
"I was in my daughter's home in Israel and the first reaction was overwhelming happiness. She is so proud, so this made me even happier," she said.
Yonath, who earned her PhD in X-ray crystallography at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is now a professor of structural biology and biomolecular structure and assembly at the same school.
Steitz said meanwhile he was awake when the early-morning phone call came from Stockholm.
"Fortunately I was about to get up to go to the gym. My caller from Stockholm said I shouldn't go to the gym (because) there would be phone calls," he told Swedish public radio. Profile: Ada Yonath
Steitz did his PhD in molecular biology and biochemistry at Harvard University and is now a professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University in the US.
Indian-born Ramakrishnan, who received his PhD in physics from Ohio University in the US and is now a senior scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, Britain, was meanwhile modest in his first reaction.
"We're only sort of captains of a team, lots of these ideas that led to this work ... was done by really brilliant students and post docs, so in a way, we are really representing all of that effort, representing a large endeavour," he told Swedish radio.
Americans have dominated the Nobel science prizes so far this year.
On Tuesday, the Physics Prize went to Charles Kao, Willard Boyle and George Smith for work on fibre optics and light sensing that helped unleash the Information Technology revolution.
Kao is a British and US citizen, Boyle holds Canadian and US citizenship and Smith is from the US.
And on Monday, the Medicine Prize honoured Australian-American scientist Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider and Jack Szostak of the United States for identifying a key molecular switch in cellular ageing.
The Literature Prize will be announced on Thursday, while the Peace Prize will be announced in Oslo on Friday. The Economics Prize will wrap up the awards back in Stockholm on October 12.
The formal prize ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo will be held as tradition dictates on December 10, the anniversary of the death in 1896 of the prize's creator, Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel.
The prizes were first awarded in 1901.
On the Net:
Nobel Chemistry Prize: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://nobelprize.org/&usg=AFQjCNExsJ4HZ7OriYJvFbBTf758TrxMfQ
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
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