Ada Yonath facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ada E. Yonath
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| עדה יונת | |
Yonath in 2013
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| Born |
Ada Lifshitz
22 June 1939 |
| Citizenship | Israeli |
| Education | |
| Known for | Cryo bio-crystallography |
| Awards | Harvey Prize (2002) Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2006) L'Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science (2008) Albert Einstein World Award of Science (2008) Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2009) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Crystallography |
| Institutions | Weizmann Institute of Science University of Chicago |
| Doctoral advisor | Wolfie Traub, F. Albert Cotton |
Ada E. Yonath (Hebrew: עדה יונת, born June 22, 1939) is an Israeli scientist. She is famous for her work in crystallography, which is a way to study the exact shapes of tiny things like molecules. She won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her amazing discoveries about ribosomes.
Ribosomes are like tiny factories inside our cells. They build all the proteins our bodies need to work. Ada Yonath is currently in charge of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
In 2009, Ada Yonath won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She shared it with two other scientists, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz. They won for their studies on how ribosomes are built and how they work. Ada Yonath was the first Israeli woman to win a Nobel Prize. She was also the first woman from the Middle East to win a Nobel Prize in science. And she was the first woman in 45 years to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry!
Early Life and Education
Ada Lifshitz, who later became Ada Yonath, was born in Jerusalem. Her parents, Hillel and Esther Lifshitz, were Jewish people who moved to what was then called the British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel) in 1933. Her father was a rabbi, which is a Jewish religious leader.
Her family was not rich. They lived in a small space with other families. Ada remembers that "books" were the only thing she had to keep her busy. Even though they didn't have much money, her parents sent her to a good school. They wanted her to get a great education. When her father passed away at age 42, her family moved to Tel Aviv.
Ada was accepted into Tichon Hadash high school. Her mother couldn't pay the school fees. So, Ada gave math lessons to other students to help pay for her own education. When she was young, she was inspired by the famous scientist Marie Curie. Ada read a book about Marie Curie and was fascinated by her work.
Ada returned to Jerusalem for college. She earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1962. Then, she got a master's degree in biochemistry in 1964 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1968, she earned her PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science. For her PhD, she used a method called X-ray crystallography to study the structure of collagen.
Ada Yonath has a daughter named Hagit Yonath, who is a doctor. She also has a granddaughter named Noa.
Amazing Scientific Discoveries
After her PhD, Ada Yonath worked at important universities like Carnegie Mellon University and MIT in the United States. In 1970, she started the first laboratory in Israel that focused on studying the structure of proteins using crystallography. This lab was the only one of its kind in Israel for almost ten years!
She also worked at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, Germany. She was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago. For many years, she led a research group in Germany while also working at the Weizmann Institute.
Ada Yonath focused on understanding how cells make proteins. This process is called protein biosynthesis. She studied ribosomes, which are the tiny machines that do this work. Many scientists were doubtful at first, but she kept going.
She discovered that ribosomes have slightly different structures in tiny living things like bacteria compared to human cells. This difference is very important! It means that antibiotics (medicines that fight germs) can target and stop the ribosomes in bacteria without harming human cells.
In 2000 and 2001, she figured out the complete, detailed structures of the two main parts of the ribosome. She found a special symmetrical part inside the ribosome. This part helps guide the process of building proteins. She also showed that the ribosome itself acts like an enzyme, helping to create the bonds that link proteins together.
In 1993, she saw the path that new proteins take as they are being built inside the ribosome. This path is like a tunnel. More recently, she showed how this tunnel helps control how proteins are made and moved to where they need to go.
Ada Yonath also studied how more than twenty different antibiotics work. She figured out how these medicines attack ribosomes. Her work helped explain why some germs become resistant to medicines. It also showed how different medicines can work together. Her discoveries have helped scientists design new and better medicines.
To do her work, Ada Yonath invented a new method called cryo bio-crystallography. This technique involves freezing delicate biological molecules before studying them with X-rays. This method is now used by many scientists around the world.
Awards and Honors
Ada Yonath is a member of many important scientific groups. These include the United States National Academy of Sciences and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In 2014, Pope Francis named her a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Here are some of the major awards she has received:
- 2002: Israel Prize
- 2002: Harvey Prize
- 2004: Massry Prize
- 2006: Wolf Prize in Chemistry
- 2006: Rothschild Prize in Life Sciences
- 2008: Albert Einstein World Award of Science
- 2009: Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with others)
- 2010: Wilhelm Exner Medal
- 2011: Marie Curie Medal
She has also received honorary doctorates from many universities around the world.
See also
In Spanish: Ada Yonath para niños
- Women of Israel
- History of RNA biology
- List of Israel Prize recipients
- List of female Nobel laureates
- List of Israeli Nobel laureates
- List of Jewish Nobel laureates
- List of RNA biologists
- Timeline of women in science
- Women in chemistry
