Ada Yonath wins Wolf Prize

Ada Yonath (Dept. of Structural Biology, Weizmann Inst.) was named as one of the winners of the prestigious Wolf Prize in Chemistry. Prof. Yonath will receive the 2006-2007 chemistry prize in May, along with Prof. George Feher, a physicist at the U. of California, San Diego. The two scientists will share the $100,000 prize granted by the Wolf Foundation in Israel.

In its official announcement, the Wolf Foundation said, “The recent emergence of ribosome structures in the crystallographic community is mainly due to Ada Yonath, who uniquely and single-handedly pioneered ribosomal crystallography over more than two decades ago, when others could not even conceive its possibility. By pushing crystallography to its limits, she demonstrated the feasibility of ribosomal crystallography, thus inspiring prominent groups to repeat her experiments. Throughout, she has been the leading force in all stages of structure determination and has introduced fundamental methodological innovations that have greatly impacted the entire field of structural biology.”

Prof. Yonath received her Ph.D. from the Weizmann Inst.in 1968. After a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT, Prof. Yonath returned to the Weizmann Inst. and began her investigation into the structure of the ribosome. Prof. Yonath is The Martin S. and Helen Kimmel Professor of Structural Biology and Director of The Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly at the Weizmann Inst.

The Wolf Prize has been awarded annually since 1978 “to promote science and art for the benefit of mankind.”