Ada Yonath

Infobox Scientist


image_width = 150px
name = Ada E. Yonath
birth_date = 22 June 1939
birth_place = Jerusalem
residence = Israel
nationality = Israeli
field = Crystallography
work_institution = Weizmann Institute of Science
alma_mater = Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Weizmann Institute of Science
doctoral_advisor =
known_for = Cryo bio-crystallography
prizes = Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2006), L'Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science (2008).
footnotes =

Ada E. Yonath (b. 22 June 1939 in Jerusalem) is an Israeli crystallographer best known for her pioneering work on the structure of ribosome. She is the current director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly of the Weizmann Institute of Science and was a co-recipient (along George Feher) of the 2006 Wolf Prize in Chemistry "for ingenious structural discoveries of the ribosomal machinery of peptide-bond formation and the light-driven primary processes in photosynthes." In 2008, became the first Israeli to win a lifetime's achievement award from L'Oreal and UNESCO for her vital work identifying how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. [http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Israel+beyond+politics/Israeli+professor+receives+Life+Work+Prize+for+women+in+science+28-Jul-2008.htm]

Biography

Ada Yonath was born in Jerusalem to an impoverished Jewish family. Her parents had little opportunity for education themselves, but were supportive of their daughter receiving a good academic education. Her family moved to Tel Aviv after the death of her father. [http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Israel+beyond+politics/Israeli+professor+receives+Life+Work+Prize+for+women+in+science+28-Jul-2008.htm]

Ada Yonath graduated with a bachelor's degree in Chemistry (1962) and a master's degree in Biochemistry (1964) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and earned a Ph.D. in X-Ray Crystallography at the Weizmann Institute of Science (1968). She has also accepted postdoctoral positions at the Carnegie Mellon University (1969) and MIT (1970).

In 1970 she established what was for nearly a decade the only protein crystallography laboratory in Israel. After returning from a sabbatical year at the University of Chicago, she headed a Max-Planck Institute Research Unit in Hamburg, Germany (1986 - 2004) in parallel to her research activities at the Weizmann Institute.

At the Weizmann Institute, Yonath is the incumbent of the Martin S. and Helen Kimmel Professorial Chair.

Yonath has a sister, a daughter, and a granddaughter (Noa).

Career

Yonath focuses on the mechanisms underlying protein biosynthesis, by ribosomal crystallography, a research line she pioneered over twenty years ago despite considerable skepticism of the international scientific community. She determined the complete high-resolution structures of both ribosomal subunits and discovered within the otherwise asymmetric ribosome, the universal symmetrical region that provides the framework and navigates the process of polypeptide polymerization. Consequently she showed that the ribosome is a ribozyme that places its substrates in stereochemistry suitable for peptide bond formation and for substrate-mediated catalysis. Two decades ago she visualized the path taken by the nascent proteins, namely the ribosomal tunnel, and recently revealed the dynamics elements enabling its involvement in elongation arrest, gating, intra-cellular regulation and nascent chain trafficking into their folding space.

Additionally, Yonath elucidated the modes of action of over twenty different antibiotics targeting the ribosome, illuminated mechanisms of drug resistance and synergism, deciphered the structural basis for antibiotic selectivity and showed how it plays a key role in clinical usefulness and therapeutic effectiveness, thus paving the way for structure-based drug design.

For enabling ribosomal crystallography Yonath introduced a novel technique, cryo bio-crystallography, which became routine in structural biology and allowed intricate projects otherwise considered formidable. [Hope, H., Frolow, F., von Bohlen, K., Makowski, I., Kratky, C., Halfon, Y., Danz, H., Webster, P., Bartels, K. S., Wittmann, H. G. & Yonath, A. (1989). Acta Cryst. B45, 190-199. Doi|10.1107/S0108768188013710]

Awards

Yonath is a member of the National Academy of Sciences; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities; the European Academy of Sciences and Art and the European Molecular Biology Organization.

Her awards and honors include the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, Israel Prize, the first European Crystallography Prize (in 2000), NIH Certificate of Distinction, the Harvey Prize, the Kilby Prize, the Cotton Medal of the US Chemical Society, the Anfinsen Award of the International Protein Society, the Zurich University's Paul Karrer Gold Medal, the University of Southern California's Massry Award and Medal, the Datta Medal of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies, the Fritz Lipmann Award of the German Biochemical Society, the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University and a L'Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science.

References

External links

* [http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/horwitz/ The Official Site of Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize]
* [http://www.weizmann.ac.il/sb/faculty_pages/Yonath/home.html Weizmann Institute of Science, Yonath-Site]