The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009 has been jointly awarded to UK based scientist of Indian origin Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, American scientist Thomas A. Steitz and Israeli scientist Ada E. Yonath for their studies of the structure and function of the ribosome.
Ramakrishnan, who is a senior scientist and Group Leader at the Structural Studies Division, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge, United Kingdom, was born in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu in 1952. He completed his B.Sc. in Physics from the Baroda University, Ph.D. in Physics from the Ohio University and went on to pursue his studies in biology as Graduate Student from the University of California, San Diego.
Thomas A. Steitz serves as Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at the Yale University, CT, USA.
Ada E. Yonath is the The Martin S. and Helen Kimmel Professor of Structural Biology and the director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
According to the statement issued by the Nobel Committee, the trio won the award for their studies on ribosome’s translation of DNA information into life. Actually, every cell in an organism contains DNA molecules and DNA molecule is that genetic material which carries all the heredity information of the organism. But, the DNA molecule is passive in itself and it is through the function of the ribosome that the heredity information carried by the DNA is translated into living matter. The ribosomes are the sites of protein synthesis in a cell and proteins are the building blocks of life at chemical level.
The three scientists showed what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at the atomic level using 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. This intricate study of ribosomes holds importance as many antibiotics these days cure diseases by blocking the ribosomes of the bacteria, thereby, killing the bacteria. The 3-D models which have been generated by the scientists show how different antibiotics bind to the ribosomes and these models are further being utilized to develop new antibiotics.
Author: Meenal Johari (Agra)
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