Ada Yonath, an Israeli crystallographer and biochemist, passed away earlier this month at age 87. She became the fourth woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which she won in 2009 and shared with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz for her groundbreaking work on ribosome structure.
Yonath’s scientific journey faced considerable opposition from the international scientific community. Many prominent researchers, including Nobel laureate James Watson, had attempted and failed to map the ribosome’s structure due to its extreme complexity—ribosomes are extremely small, irregularly shaped, and lack internal symmetry. Despite being called a dreamer, fantasist, and even the village idiot by detractors, Yonath persisted in her research. Her crucial insight came in the late 1970s while recovering from a bicycle accident. After reading about how polar bears pack their ribosomes in an orderly manner during hibernation, she reasoned that if nature had developed this capability, humans could replicate it artificially.
Yonath’s methodology involved crystallizing ribosomes from thermophile bacteria found in extreme environments, theorizing that organisms adapted to harsh conditions would produce more durable ribosomes capable of surviving the crystallization process. After more than 25,000 attempts, she succeeded in the mid-1980s. She then pioneered cryo bio-crystallography, freezing samples at extremely low temperatures to preserve their structure. By 2001 and 2002, her team had successfully mapped the three-dimensional structure of bacterial ribosomes.
The practical implications of her discovery extended far beyond academic interest. Understanding ribosome structure enabled scientists to develop more targeted antibiotics by identifying specific binding sites on bacterial ribosomes while minimizing harm to human cells. This knowledge has proven essential in developing new antibiotics and addressing antibiotic resistance. The Nobel Committee specifically recognized these medical applications in its citation.
Born in Jerusalem to an Orthodox Jewish family that had emigrated from Poland, Yonath earned her chemistry degree from Hebrew University and later a PhD from the Weizmann Institute, where she spent her entire research career. Beyond her scientific achievements, she was known for political outspokenness, recently criticizing Israeli judicial reforms. She was survived by a daughter and granddaughter.
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