Nobel Prize

Ever since she was a girl, Ada Yonath has set herself seemingly impossible goals, and then figured out how to reach them, step by step. As a young scientist she took on a challenge that others considered hopeless – mapping the structure of the ribosome – and persevered for decades until she succeeded. Her determination and ingenuity allowed researchers to see and understand the complex and crucial molecule. And since the ribosome is a major bacterial target for antibiotics, her work has led to new antibiotics and a better understanding of antibiotic resistance.

“Captured for life by chemistry and by crystals,” as she described it, Dorothy Hodgkin turned a childhood interest in crystals into the ground-breaking use of X-ray crystallography to “see” the molecules of penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin. Her work not only allowed researchers to better understand and manufacture life-saving substances, it also made crystallography an indispensable scientific tool.

With one ingenious idea and years of subsequent work, Frances Arnold turned bioengineering upside down. Recognising that nature was “the best bioengineer in history,” she figured out how to let evolution be her partner in the lab. She pioneered the use of directed evolution to design new enzymes, with applications as broad as they are essential, from pharmaceuticals to renewable fuels.

Carolyn Bertozzi did not submit a biography.

Rudolph A. Marcus receiving his Nobel Prize from H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden at the Stockholm Concert Hall on 10 December 1992. Rudolph A. Marcus after receiving his Nobel Prize from H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden at the Stockholm Concert Hall on 10 December 1992. Laureates on stage at the Nobel…

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