Revealing the Ribosome

Dr. Thomas Steitz was awarded one-third of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, along with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Ada Yonath, for his demonstration of the structure and function of the intracellular organelle, the ribosome. His work was especially important in showing where and how certain antibiotics work in the bacterial ribosome, and how bacteria can develop resistance to these antibiotics. His wife, Joan, was a distinguished molecular biologist who was awarded the 2018 Lasker Prize in Medicine.