For ‘A Dreamer,’ Nobel Is Reality

Ada Yonath’s Nobel Prize is source of “enormous pride” for Israelis.

Ada Yonath’s Nobel Prize is source of “enormous pride” for Israelis.

by Stewart Ain
Staff Writer

A da Yonath, who was inspired by the story of Marie Curie to pursue a career in science at the Weizmann Institute of Science, became the first Israeli woman to win the Nobel Prize last week and only the fourth woman ever to win the prize in chemistry.

“There is nothing in my childhood to suggest that I would reach this point, even though my parents and family have always thought there was a chance of recognition,” Yonath, 70, told Israel radio.

Yonath, a grandmother, shares the prize with American Thomas Steitz of Yale University and Britain Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, the United Kingdom. They were cited for their work in revealing the atomic structure and inner workings of the ribosome, the protein-producing factories within cells.

In a statement applauding her selection, Professor Daniel Zajfman, president of the Weizmann Institute of Science, pointed out that when Yonath decided to devote her career to understanding the ribosome, “she did not know that the insights she would reach would help humankind to overcome antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”

Although scientists began their research into ribosomes in earnest in the 1950s, Yonath did not begin her work on them until the late 1970s.

“People called me a dreamer,” she said of her decision to solve the ribosome’s mysteries.
After 25,000 tries, she and her colleagues succeeded for the first time in 1980 in creating the first ribosome crystals.

Ribosomes are cellular machines that read the genetic code in each cell, understand it and then make proteins from amino acids. Proteins are the components in cells that perform the functions of life.
For the next 20 years, Yonath and her colleagues continued to improve their technique. In 2000, teams she headed at Weizmann and the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg, Germany, solved for the first time the complete spatial structure of both subunits of a bacterial ribosome. The feat was recognized as one of the 10 most important scientific developments of the year by Science magazine.

In recent years, Yonath’s work has revealed how the genetic information is decoded, and how the ribosome’s inherent flexibility contributes to antibiotic selectivity and the secrets of cross-resistance to various antibiotic families — research that is critical in the development of advanced antibiotics.
At a press conference last week, Yonath said she knew the value of her research.

“From the moment I reached the first initial finding, I said this was a project deserving a Nobel. But people told me I would not get there, that it was impossible,” she said. “In other words, they gave me the feeling that this really is a cardinal and important problem, but that there is no chance.”
Yonath admitted that the road to success was not easy.

“The study was difficult to the point of impossible,” she said. “When I was told I was a leading candidate [for the Nobel Prize], I thought it was a practical joke. ... I saw the number 46 on the caller ID, the country code for Sweden. So I said, ‘They’re taking this joke really far.’ But the tone was very much Swedish, with a very Swedish accent, so it seemed fine after all.”

Yonath added: “People who think they made such a huge contribution sit and wait for the award and get angry when they don’t get it — I’m not like that.”

Shortly after the prize was announced, Israeli President Shimon Peres called Yonath to offer his congratulations.

“We are so proud of you, it’s hard to describe just how much,” he said. “You are extremely deserving of the Nobel and the award is an achievement to the entire country; we are all excited together with you.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told her in a phone call that he had “enormous pride, along with the entire nation” in her achievement.

“The Nobel Prize is a true Olympics of humanity,” he said.

In announcing its selection, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the Nobel Prize was given to the three because their work had been fundamental to the scientific understanding of life and helped researchers develop antibiotic cures for various diseases.

The three used a technique known as X-ray crystallography to pinpoint the position of thousands of atoms in the ribosome, which the Nobel jury described as “one of the cell’s most complex machines — at the atomic level.

“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.

The three scientists will share the $1.4 million prize money that was established in 1905 in the will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.

Yonath has won several other prizes for her research, including the Israel Prize in Chemistry and the Wolf Prize in Chemistry.

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