Ribosome and its atomic structure
Ribosoma como fábrica de proteínas y su estructura atómica
- Date
- 1955-2000 · confidence high
- Place
- Rockefeller Institute, New York (Palade) / Weizmann, Yale, MRC Cambridge (structure)
- Credited to
- George Palade (1955); Ada Yonath, Venki Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz (structure, 2000)
- People
- 👤 Ada Yonath1939–2026👤 George Palade1912–2008👤 Thomas Arthur Steitz1940–2018👤 Venkatraman Ramakrishnan1952–
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Palade identified under the electron microscope the particles where proteins are synthesised; in 2000 its atomic structure was solved, showing that RNA catalyses the peptide bond (ribozyme).
Nobel Prize 1974 (Palade) and 2009 (Yonath, Ramakrishnan, Steitz).
What it led to
- ultrastructural cell biology
- the mechanism of action of half of all antibiotics
- the RNA world hypothesis
- antibiotic design
Built on
Made possible
- applied cryo-electron microscopy