<ada yonath>

Keynote talk

The spectacular ribosome architecture clues about its origin

Ribosomes are the universal cellular universal machines with stunning intricate architecture accompanied by inherent mobility, which facilitate their smooth performance as polymerases that translate the genetic code into proteins. The site for peptide bond formation, which is composed solely of RNA moieties, is located within a universal internal semi-symmetrical region connecting all of the remote ribosomal features involved in its functions. The elaborate architecture of this region positions ribosomal substrates in appropriate stereochemistry for peptide bond formation, for substrate-mediated catalysis, for substrate translocation, and for nascent chain elongation. The high conservation of the symmetrical region implies its existence irrespective of environmental conditions and indicates that it may represent a prebiotic RNA bonding machine, which is still functioning in the contemporary ribosome.

Bio

Prof. Ada Yonath studied at the Hebrew University, earned Ph.D. degree from Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) and completed her postdoctoral studies at Carnegie Mellon and MIT, USA. In the seventies she established the first laboratory for protein crystallography in Israel, which was the only laboratory of this kind in the country for almost a decade. Currently she is the Kimmel Professor of structural biology at WIS, and the Director of the Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly. In 1986-2004 she also headed the Max-Planck Research Unit for Ribosome Structure in Hamburg, Germany.

She is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS); the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities; the European Academy of Sciences and Art; the European Molecular Biology Organization; the Korean Academy for Science and Technology, and the International Academy of Astronautics.

She holds honorary doctorates from Oxford University in UK, New York University in USA, Oslo University in Norway, Fujou University in China and the Hebrew, Open, Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion and Bar Ilan universities in Israel, and is an honorary supreme Prof. of KEK, Japan.

Her awards include the 1st European Crystallography Prize; the Israel Prize; the Paul Karrer Gold Medal; the Israel Prime Minister EMET award; the Rothschild Prize; the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize; the Paul Ehrlich-Ludwig Medal; the Linus Pauling Gold Medal; the Anfinsen Prize; the Wolf Prize; the Massry Award and Medal; the UNESCO Award for Women in Science; the Albert Einstein World Award for Excellence; the Erice Prize for Peace; the DESY pin; the Eminent Scientists Award of the Japan Society for Promotion of Science; Honorary Supreme Prof of KEK, Photon Factory, Tsukuba, Japan; the Exner medal, Austria; the Indian Prime minister Gold medal; the President of Panama medal; the WISH Award, Lausanne; the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Medal, Poland; the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Yonath is using X-ray crystallography supported by molecular biology, mutagenesis and biophysical methods to investigate protein biosynthesis. She is focusing on the ribosome, the cellular particle translating the genetic code into proteins, on its origin and on its inhibition by antibiotics.

Dec 2012

Department of Structural Biology, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel  

ada.yonath@weizmann.ac.il

Lab homepage: [click here]