Israeli woman wins 2009 chemistry Nobel
Dr. Anat Bashan, Yonath's research partner also commented and said, "No doubt that if anyone deserves a Nobel prize it's Ada – she's an amazing scientist and an incredible human being."
Israeli scientist Ada Yonath aged 70, as well as American scientists Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz, were awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday, for mapping ribosomes, the protein-producing factories within cells, at the atomic level.
Seventy year old Professor Ada Yonath from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot.
Photo: AP [file]
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their work has been fundamental to the scientific understanding of life and has helped researchers develop antibiotic cures for various diseases.
Shortly after the award was announced, President Shimon Peres called Yonath to congratulate her, saying, "We are proud of you, it's hard to describe just how proud."
"This is the first time that a researcher from the Weizman Institute has been awarded a Nobel Prize and I am happy for your success," the president added.
Yonath is the fourth woman to win the Nobel chemistry prize and the first since 1964, when Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin of Britain received the prize.
This year's three laureates all generated three-dimensional models that show how different antibiotics bind to ribosomes.
Gunnar Oquist, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences, announces the Nobel Physics Prize winners for 2009 at the session hall of the academy in Stockholm, Tuesday.
Photo: AP
"These models are now used by scientists in order to develop new antibiotics, directly assisting the saving of lives and decreasing humanity's suffering," the academy said in its announcement.
"All three have used a method called X-ray crystallography to map the position for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome," the academy said.
Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite, established the Nobel Prizes in his will in 1895. The first awards were handed out six years later.
Each prize comes with a 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) purse, a diploma, a gold medal and an invitation to the prize ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10. The Peace Prize is handed out in Oslo.
On Monday, three American scientists shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells, an insight that has inspired new lines of research into cancer.
The physics prize on Tuesday was split between a Hong Kong-based scientist who helped develop fiber-optic cable and two Canadian and American researchers who invented the "eye" in digital cameras - technology that has revolutionized communications and science.
The literature and peace prize winners will be announced later this week and the economics announcement is set for Monday.
