Prof. Ada Yonath speaks on Ribosomes to ESRA Rehovot

ESRA Rehovot recently hosted Professor Ada Yonath, a 2009 Nobel Prize laureate in Biochemistry, who gave a talk entitled “Ribosomes and their Tiny Enemies”. Prof. Yonath had just returned to Israel early that morning, delayed by the Iceland volcano eruption, and was due to leave again the next day, but did not consider canceling her appearance. She gave an amazing talk. Amazing in that it explained in clear terms to a non-scientific audience the function and importance of ribosomes and yet held the interest and attention of the scientists in the audience. She described the ribosome as the “factory” of cells where proteins are produced and showed the connection between a gene, its transcription into RNA, and the translation of the RNA in the ribosome into a functioning protein. This was illustrated by a short animated film that demonstrated the RNA being “read” and the proper amino acid being added to a new protein. This film had relevance for the second part of her talk which was about the enemies of ribosomes.

As an introduction, she showed pictures of a number of famous writers and artists from the 19th and early 20th century who died at an early age from infectious diseases. She then described the development of antibiotics which could have prevented these deaths by interfering with the function of the bacterial ribosomes, thereby preventing disease development. This was illustrated with another animated film showing where in the ribosome each antibiotic acts to block protein production.

The last part of her talk dealt with her research at the Weizmann Institute and in various laboratories in Europe and the USA for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize. It was the culmination of a quixotic quest to determine the 3-D structure of ribosomes. In order to do this it is necessary to prepare ribosomes in an organized structure (crystal) to facilitate X-Ray crystallography. The overwhelming consensus of the scientific community was that this goal was not achievable due to the size and complexity of the structure containing over 20 proteins and an even larger amount of RNA — a conclusion seemingly borne out by long years of unsuccessful efforts by her group. As she described it, the first breakthrough came when she read an unrelated article that described the metabolic changes in hibernating polar bears. The ribosomes of the bear “lined up” in the cells during this period. She went on to examine bacteria under extreme conditions, such as the Dead Sea and hot springs, to find organized structures of ribosomes which, when reproduced in the laboratory, enabled crystallography.

Prof. Yonath acknowledged the many other scientists and organizations that had aided her in this research, and the support that she had received here in Israel at the Weizmann Institute. The story made science become alive, interesting, and very human. The audience was enthralled throughout and asked many questions at the end of the talk.

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Susan Lurie

Susan Lurie was born in New York.  She studied at universities in the US, received a PhD in biology from City University of New York, and came to live in Israel the last week of 1972 to take u...
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