Venkatraman Ramakrishnan – Chemistry Nobel Prize 2009 Winners – Thomas Steitz – Ada Yonath

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (UK based Indian origin scientist) along with American Thomas A Steitz and Isreali scientist Ada E Yonath has win the Noble Prize 2009 for Chemistry.

Their research is one which tries to understand one of life most important process that is the ribosome’s translation of DNA information into life. For a brief, ribosomes produce proteins. These proteins are then used to control the chemistry in living bodies. The study will also help a lot in antibiotics research.

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan is a US citizen who was born in Tamil Nadu, India. He is 57 year old and is a PhD holder in Physics from the Ohio University in USA. He is also a senior scientist and group leader at Structural Studies Division, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge.

Thomas Steitz is a US citizen who is 69 year old. He is a Ph.D. holder in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry in from the Harvard University in USA. He is also a Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, both at Yale University, CT, USA.

Ada Yonath is an Israel citizen who is 70 year old and was born in Jerusalem. She is a Ph.D. holder in X-ray Crystallography from Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Congratulation to our 3 heroes of the day fro Chemistry section.

And this is important because …

It is also the main target of new antibiotics, which combat bacterial strains that have developed resistance to traditional antibiotic drugs.

These new drugs work by blocking the function of ribosomes in bacterial cells, preventing them from making the proteins they need to survive.