Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 1:53 amRamakrishnan, 57, and Steitz, 69, used the lab's facilities from 1998 to 2000, said spokeswoman Karen McNulty Walsh. Some work was done elsewhere, she said.
The third winner, Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, pioneered the use of X-ray crystallography to study ribosomes - something most researchers considered impossible when she first began her experiments. The method aims X-rays at crystals of proteins. Scientists measure how the rays scatter after they hit the crystal's atoms to determine their structure, the academy said.
Yonath, 70, labored for decades to produce stable ribosome crystals, paving the way for other winners' work. The $1.4-million prize will be shared equally by the three scientists. They all published 2000 papers mapping the atomic structure of the ribosome complex, which has two parts.
discovering an enzyme, telomerase, that maintains the lengths of the telomeres - the tails at the ends of chromosomes that become shorter as a cell divides.
With Delthia Ricks
The third winner, Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, pioneered the use of X-ray crystallography to study ribosomes - something most researchers considered impossible when she first began her experiments. The method aims X-rays at crystals of proteins. Scientists measure how the rays scatter after they hit the crystal's atoms to determine their structure, the academy said.
Yonath, 70, labored for decades to produce stable ribosome crystals, paving the way for other winners' work. The $1.4-million prize will be shared equally by the three scientists. They all published 2000 papers mapping the atomic structure of the ribosome complex, which has two parts.
discovering an enzyme, telomerase, that maintains the lengths of the telomeres - the tails at the ends of chromosomes that become shorter as a cell divides.
With Delthia Ricks