Ada E. Yonath

1939 – 20??

Ada E. Yonath is an Israeli crystallographer who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz for her studies on the structure and function of the ribosome. With her 2000 publication of the first complete crystal structure of a ribosomal subunit, she opened the molecular machinery of protein synthesis to detailed visualization, enabling a new generation of antibiotic research. She was the first Israeli woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first woman in 45 years to win the Nobel in Chemistry.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM