Daily Lessons from Life 07 October 2009

"First Israeli woman to win a Nobel
Ada Yonath, who was awarded the Chemistry Prize, was once so poor she could not afford books. -Wed, Oct 07, 2009 AFP

JERUSALEM - Ada Yonath, who became the first Israeli woman to win a Nobel on Wednesday when she was awarded the Chemistry Prize, was once so poor she could not afford books.


The 70-year-old won the prize with two US scientists for "mapping the ribosome - one of the cell's most complex machineries - at the atomic level," the Nobel jury said.

It marked just how far she has come since her childhood in a poor family in Jerusalem in then British-mandate Palestine.

"There was nothing in my childhood to suggest that I would reach this point, even though my parents and family have always thought there was a chance of recognition," a weeping Yonath told Israeli public radio.


She becomes the first Israeli woman to win the prestigious prize and the fourth woman to ever win the Nobel Chemistry prize, including Marie Curie, whose story inspired her to pursue science.

Yonath is the ninth Israeli ever to get the Nobel and the third to win one in chemistry.


The award-winning professor from the Weizmann Institute of Science in the town of Rehovot south of Tel Aviv has devoted her career to the study of the ribosome, which is crucial in the development of new antibiotics.

Considered a pioneer of ribosome crystallography, she created the first ribosome crystals in 1980 and was the first to note that the ribosome is riddled with internal chambers, according to the US National Institutes of Health website.


"Our research spun over many years and developed in different directions... every time I thought I was facing a problem the size of the Everest only to discover there was a bigger Everest behind it," she told public radio.

"The second I cracked the structure (of the ribosome) I was very happy... really, really happy," she said.


"I never thought about me being a woman or not when I did science - I was just a human being born into an extremely poor family," she once said. "We were so poor we didn't even have books." "

Lessons for me are:

1. male or female does not matter as we are all human being! We are unique individual that have our own destiny to fulfill!;

2. being poor is not a factor to decide how far and how high will you go in life! So, while nature is important, nurture and hard work are the other components of success!;

3. success or recognition can come at a very ripe old age as in her case. The important thing to do is to continue working at something you are passionate about without regards to if you will be recognized as it is a matter of when and not if you will be recognized! Even if external recognition does not come, you will recognize your own efforts. If you don't who will!! ;-);

4. the quote: 'When I thought I had just overcome my Everest, another one that lured behind appeared before me!" If we don't have the perseverance, the determination, the doggedness, and passion, we will not achieved as progress in science and in life, sometimes, come from thousands of times of failed experiments!!

May science continued its progress for the betterment of mankind!