Ada Yonath, chemistry Nobel winner who mapped the ribosome, dies at 87

Structural biologist and x-ray crystallographer Ada Yonath, who won the chemistry Nobel prize in 2009 for her pioneering work on the structure and function of the ribosome, passed away on 31 August at 87 years old. She pursued research and maintained an active laboratory right up until the end of her life and is remembered for her intellectual courage, as well as a willingness to pursue questions that others considered unanswerable.

Yonath’s parents emigrated from Poland in 1933 to what is now Israel and she was born in Jerusalem in 1939. Yonath had a curious mind from an early age. In 2018, Yonath recounted to Chemistry World her ambitious project at the age of five to measure the height of the ceiling in her family’s apartment. This involved standing on a table, chair and stool – all balanced on the apartment’s balcony – and she fell into the backyard, breaking her arm.