What would you ask a Nobel Prize winner?

Oeiras, 31.03.2011

ITQB is pleased to announce that, on April 18th, we will be welcoming Ada Yonath, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009.

In the morning, Ada Yonath will be at Reitoria da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (a second lecture will be held in Porto) to talk about her work with a lecture entitled “The amazing ribosome, its tiny enemies and hints about its origin” And, on the same day in the afternoon, she will join researchers at ITQB to discuss her experience as a researcher and a Nobel Prize awardee.

When others thought it impossible, Ada Yonath concentrated on obtaining the structure from the ribosome, a complex cellular machine that creates proteins from RNA. For her persistence, which opened the field to others, she received in 2009 the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz “for studies on the structure and function of the ribosome”.

Today, Ada Yonath is still an active protein crystallography researcher at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. The technique proposed by Ada Yonath, cryo bio-crystallography, is now routinely used in structural biology laboratories worldwide, including at ITQB, for solving structures which would otherwise be impossible to obtain.

The discussion session with Ada Yonath at ITQB is scheduled for April 18 at 16h00. This will be an excellent opportunity to ask an experienced and successful researcher her opinion on the future of science and the responsibilities of scientists in the process. The session is open to all.

Download poster [*.pdf]

Conference

The amazing ribosome, its tiny enemies and hints about its origin
Reitoria Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Campus de Campolide
18 April,  12h00

Discussion session*

Talking to Ada Yonath
ITQB Auditorium
18 April , 16h00
(*) Participants are encouraged to bring their own questions to this session.