Science in the Triangle

Hours before Ada Yonath presented highlights of her life’s work at a symposium at the N.C. Biotechnology Center Friday, the Israeli scientist was on the phone talking about growing up poor in Jerusalem and researching protein factories in cells called ribosomes.

The phone started ringing at 2 a.m. At 4 a.m., a scheduled call from Stockholm came from the folks working on the Dec. 10 ceremony for the Nobel prize in chemistry. They needed biographical information from Yonath (photo at left), one of three winners this year.

The invitation to present at the symposium in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, extended months before the Nobel prize winners were announced Oct. 7, was a lucky pick. For much of the about 25 years that Yonath has dedicated to the three-dimensional structure of ribosomes, her work was viewed with skepticism, the Jerusalem Post wrote.

A few days before the symposium began, Yonath confirmed her attendance and traveled from Israel to RTP to present some of the most important of her ribosome findings before an auditorium packed with several hundred students and teachers.

Yonath, 70, a grandmother with a wicked sense of humor and a curly mane, is a pioneer in X-ray crystallography. She used the method to figure out the three-dimensional structure of ribosomes, folded strands of genetic code that look like balls of yarn. (Photo on right)

Her scientific breakthrough explained how these folds of code assemble proteins, strands of amino acids that are vital in just about every process within cells. Within the ball of yarn she found a molecular fossil, an ancient, active center that is similar in living organisms from bacteria to elephants (yellow section on photo on right).

Drug development is not a focus of Yonath and her laboratory at the Weizman Institute of Science in Rehovot, a city south of Tel Aviv. But her work on ribosomes helps drugmakers understand how antibiotics disrupt protein production in bacteria, how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics and why some antibiotics not only attack bacteria but also cells in the human body.

Drug-resistant strains of bacteria are a growing problem, particularly methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, a superbug that has spread beyond hospitals and can now be found in locker rooms and prisons.

“There will always be resistance [to antibiotics]. The will of the bacteria to live is stronger than our chemistry,” Yonath said during a question-and-answer session with science writers after her presentation at the symposium. But “every little detail we can add to the antibiotic way of action is important.”