Yale University: Steitz Wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry

New Haven, Conn., Oct 16, 2009 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- MEVR | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Pursuing the research that earned him a Nobel Prize was akin to climbing Mount Everest, said Thomas Steitz, Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry.

Steitz, who is also a professor of chemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Yale, was one of three winners of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work describing the structure and function of the ribosome, which plays a key role in making proteins. Steitz will share the $1.4 million award with two other scientists who have also studied the ribosome: Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of Cambridge University and Ada D. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Steitz's research was "fundamental, sweat-it-out, figure-it-out science," said President Richard C. Levin at a press conference on Oct. 14, the day the Nobel awards were announced. "It's like solving a gigantic jigsaw puzzle about one of the most important, fundamental aspects of biology - because after all, this is the protein machine, this is the factory that makes the proteins that are the source of life for all of us." Describing Steitz as "a towering figure in the field of structural biology," Levin said of the recognition by the Nobel Prize committee, "We've all been waiting for this for many years." The president also noted that Steitz's colleagues at Yale have been "great contributors to his own work" - citing in particular, Peter Moore, Sterling Professor of Chemistry. Levin added that Steitz's wife, Joan, who is also a Sterling Professor of Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale, is a pioneer in her own right "and is someone we hope someday will also get the recognition that Tom has gotten today." Steitz's work has elucidated the structure and function of the ribosome, an enormously complex ensemble of numerous protein and RNA components. While DNA is the instruction manual for the creation of proteins, the ribosome is the machine that translates the encoded information to turn it into proteins. Although the work began as a quest to answer basic questions about the makeup of the ribosome, knowledge of its structure has created targets for a new generation of antibiotics.

When he and his colleagues began their quest to decipher the structure of the ribosome, said Steitz at the press conference, "It seemed to us a bit like trying to climb Mount Everest - that is, it was do-able in principle, but we didn't know actually whether we were going to be able to get there, and we didn't know exactly the route through which we should travel.

"But we found the right way, and then when we got to the top in 2000, it was very exhilarating - in fact, the most exhilarating moment I've had in science - to peer into the inner workings of the ribosome and think about how it works," he added.

Steitz and his fellow Nobelists all used a technology called X-ray crystallography to map the position for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome. In X-ray crystallography, beams of X-ray pass through and bounce off atoms in protein-RNA crystals. This leaves a diffraction pattern scientists use to discern the three-dimensional atomic details of the molecules under study.

Scientific interest on the ribosome has focused on two major subunits. The smaller 30S subunit binds to messenger RNA that harbors the blueprint for protein synthesis. The second subunit 50S carries out the protein synthesis reaction by adding specific amino acid residues onto a growing protein backbone.

In 2000, Steitz used a 2.5 billion electron volt x-ray beam at the Brookhaven National Laboratory's National Synchroton Light Source and additional data from the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory to study the atomic structure of the 50S subunit. The high resolution enabled the team to resolve the atomic structure of all 100,000 atoms that are well ordered in the crystal.

"I think we were amazed at each stage at the overwhelming complexity of the RNA folding in the ribosome," Steitz said at the time. "But I think the most surprising observation was that the proteins were embedded among the RNA helices, penetrating into the interior of the ribosome like tentacles." "Steitz's contributions represent a great leap forward in our quest to understand life," said Patrick Sung, chair of the Department of Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry and professor of therapeutic radiology. "Moreover, the knowledge garnered from Steitz's seminal work can be put to practical use. Since bacteria cannot survive without a functional ribosome, Steitz's studies will likely lead to more efficacious treatment of bacterial infections via the design of new antibiotics that target the ribosome." Steitz's close collaboration with Moore, who is also professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and interactions with William Jorgenson, Sterling Professor of Chemistry at Yale, led to the establishment of a biotechnology company, Rib-X Pharmaceuticals. The company is using knowledge of the structures of the large ribosomal subunits and its antibiotic complexes to create new classes of antibiotics for tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. The company is headquartered in New Haven.

"We are extremely happy for Tom on receiving this very prestigious award," commented Susan Froshauer, chief executive officer of Rib-X. "Rib-X was built on his extraordinary science, utilizes his award-winning knowledge of the structure and function of the ribosome and has yielded several distinctive new antibiotics that can be used for the treatment of multi-antibiotic resistant infections." "Today is a special day for me," said Moore, "not only because I had the good fortune to work with Tom Steitz on the ribosome, which is the most exciting science I ever had anything to do with, but also because Venki Ramakrishnan, who is sharing the prize with Tom, was a postdoctoral student in my laboratory 30 years ago. It is good to see one's 'children' doing well." (See related story below.) "When these researchers started their work, determining the structure and mechanism of the ribosome seemed nearly impossible," said Jeremy M. Berg, director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. "Their achievement shows how basic research to answer fundamental questions about biology also lays the foundation for medical advances." Steitz echoed this sentiment at the press conference. "I've always been interested in basic research, and I think this is what the NIH [National Institutes of Health] does and should support. Basic research has, as is so often the case, practical consequences, often unseen. I for one wasn't thinking about the ribosome as being a target of antibiotics and that this would be useful; it never crossed my mind." Steitz was born in 1940 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and received his bachelor's of arts degree from Lawrence College in 1962 and a doctoral degree in molecular biology and biochemistry in 1966 from Harvard University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard 1966-1967 and at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England, from 1967 to 1970. He joined Yale as a faculty member in 1970. A list of his other awards includes the Lawrence University Lucia R. Briggs Distinguished Achievement Award, 2002; the Frank H. Westheimer Medal, Harvard University, 2004; the Keio Medical Science Prize, 2006; and the George E. Palade Award, 2008.

In 2007, Steitz was one of four recipients of the Gairdner International Awards. Many scientists who have received this award have gone on to win a Nobel Prize. Three other Yale researchers have won a Gairdner Award: Dr. Thomas Pollard, Sterling Professor and chair of the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology; Dr. Arthur Horwich, the Higgins Professor of Genetics and Pediatrics; and Joan Steitz.

Other Nobel Prize winners have Yale affiliations This year's Nobel Prize winners also include three individuals who have affiliations with Yale.

Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California-San Francisco, who re-ceived the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase, was a postdoctoral fellow in molecular and cellular biology at Yale 1975-1977.

Charles K. Kao of the University of Hong Kong and of Standard Telecommunications Laboratory in the United Kingdom (retired), who was honored with a Nobel Prize in Physics for his groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication, was an adjunct professor at Yale, and a longtime supporter and facilitator of ties between the U.S. and Chinese institutions.

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of Cambridge University, who shares the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas Steitz of Yale and Ada D. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel for studies of the ribosome, began his work in that area 30 years ago as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Peter Moore of Yale, who also collaborated with Steitz on his research into the structure and function of the ribosome.

CONTACT: Office of Public Affairs, Yale University Tel: +1 203 432 1345

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