Jez's Blog

The resent winners of the Nobel Prize, for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome in 2009, are Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the M.R.C. Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England; Tmas A. Steitz of Yale University; and Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. These scientists showed how the information encoded on strands of DNA is translated into the thousands of proteins that make up living matter. Dr. Yonath set out to understand the detailed structure of the ribosome by growing crystals of the ribosome material from deserted bacteria known as Grobacillus stearothemophilus and then irradiate it with X-rays. Meanwhile, she has drawn others into the field, including Dr. Steitz. Dr. Steitz solved a key problem on how to explain the dots in the diagram of the large sub unit, aided by electron microscope images of the ribosome. Meanwhile, Dr.Ramakrishnan decoded the structure of the other half of the ribosome, which was the so-called small sub unit.



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/science/08nobel.html?hpw
[Picture of the Noble Prize winners. Copied by Jez. 11th Oct. 2009]
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2009/
[The Nobel Prize in Chemistry. 11th Oct. 2009]