The Royal Academy of Science announced that the Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2009 has been given to two US citizens Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A Steitz and the Israeli Ada E Yonath for their unique "studies of the structure and function of the ribosome". One of the core processes in life.

The three chemistry laureates used X-ray crystallography to map the position of each of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosomes. Their three-dimensional models, built up during the 1980s and 1990s, showed scientists how the ribosomes “read” the genetic code of DNA and converts it to the protein molecules that control all biochemical processes.

The models have been used to develop new antibiotics, some of which are in clinical trials.