Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the M.R.C. Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England; Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University; and Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. They worked independently and used X-rays generated by powerful particle accelerators and computer calculations to map out the complex structure of the inside of a ribosome and show how it functions at an atomic level. The ribosome research has had medical implications by being used to develop new antibiotics because some antibiotics work by jamming up the ribosomes of bacteria cells.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/science/08nobel.html?_r=1
Posted by Adam Murray
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Using the X-rays, they were able to see exactly how RNA is coded into amino acids and then into proteins on a molecular level. LIkely, this will have a huge effect on genetic research.
ReplyDeleteDora Moore