VOA标准英语2009年-3 Scientists Share Nobel Chemistry Prize f

（单词翻译）

By Tom Rivers
London
07 October 2009

 
Ada Yonath (file photo)
Two Americans and one Israeli share this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work showing how the DNA¹ code is translated into life itself. 

Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath from Israel were all instrumental in showing how proteins are made at the atomic level.

The chairman of the Nobel Chemistry Committee, Gunnar Von Heijne says the importance of their research cannot be overstated.

"The three laureates have accomplished² what many scientists thought impossible, namely to determine the three- dimensional structure of the molecular³ machine that makes all the proteins in a cell, the so-called ribosome," said Von Heijne. "Using x-ray crystallography to obtain snapshots of the ribosome in action, they have been able to explain how the ribosome selects and couples together amino acids to form proteins."
 
While DNA molecules⁴ contain the blueprint⁵ for life inside each cell of every organism, it is the ribosome that translates that information into life.

And as professor Von Heijne says, their understanding of the mechanisms⁶ at work has opened the door to others seeking new treatments.

"They have also shown how bacterial⁷ ribosomes can be stopped dead in their tracks by various antibiotics⁸, thereby⁹ providing insights that help researchers design new drugs to be used in our never-ending fight against bacterial infections," he explained.

The three recipients¹⁰ share the $1.4 million prize. The chemistry award is the third in the 2009 Nobel series. Prizes for medicine were handed out Monday and for physics on Tuesday.

Prizes for the sciences and for peace have been handed out annually¹¹ since 1901.