The Science Museum of the University of Navarra has produced a new video of the series "Women in Science", an initiative of this institution to highlight the role of some women scientists from reference letter unknown to the general public.

This time the protagonist is Ada Yonath, the fourth woman in history to receive the award Nobel Prize from Chemistry (2009) for the study of the function and structure of ribosomes.

Ada Yonath was born into a Jewish family in 1939, and despite her family's limited financial resources, her parents opted for a quality Education . Although her parents made a great effort to send her to a good school, Ada had to teach mathematics in order to finance programs of study.

Despite her interest in Humanities, Ada soon discovered her passion for science. Thus, she studied degree program from Chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and received her PhD from high school Weizman, where she specialized in Crystallography. Yonath completed two postdoctoral stays in the United States and, at the end of 1970, she returned to Israel and founded the first laboratory of biological crystallography in the country.

Ada has devoted himself to the study of ribosome structure and developed a new technique known as "cryo-bio-crystallography". Her research has been the basis for identifying the mechanism of action of many antibiotics that kill bacteria by attacking their ribosomes. These findings have contributed to the design of new generations of antibiotics. 

award Nobel Prize at Chemistry in 2009

Ada Yonath is the fourth woman in history to receive the award Nobel Prize from Chemistry. She was awarded this recognition in 2009 -together with scientists Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz- for the study on the structure and function of ribosomes -cellular factories where proteins are produced, in a process known as translation-.

Currently, Dr. Yonath combines research with teaching at various universities around the world. She is the director of the Kimmelman Center and a professor at department in structural biology. Her group at research continues to study how antibiotics act and the role of ribosomes in the origin of life.

"Women in Science" is an initiative of the Science Museum -funded by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) / Ministry of Science and Innovation-that counts with the partnership of the group Women for Science and Technology of the University of Navarra. This informative project is part of the Science Museum's STEM strategy to make the teaching of subjects related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics more attractive, especially among girls and young women.