2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath

• 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath
• The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge,United Kingdom Thomas A. Steitz, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA Ada E. Yonath, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
• "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome"
• The knowledge about the ribosome's inner workings is put to practical use in many of today's antibiotics which cure diseases by blocking the function of bacterial ribosomes. Bacteria cannot survive without functional ribosomes, so ribosomes are an important target for new antibiotics.
• They 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.  They have generated 3D models that show how different antibiotics bind to the ribosome. These models are now used to develop new antibiotics, directly assisting the saving of lives and decreasing humanity's suffering.

This is a screenshot of the official Nobel website.I am disappointed that they have not cared to acquire and post the image of Sir Venkataraman.

Posted via web from Inquisitives' posterous