Zitat des Tages von Ada Yonath:
After I spent my compulsory army service in the 'top secret office' of the Medical Forces, where I was fortunate to be exposed to clinical and medical issues, I enrolled to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The ribosome is a machine that gets instructions from the genetic code and operates chemically in order to produce the product.
I don't walk into the lab in the morning thinking, 'I am a woman, and I will carry out an experiment that will conquer the world.' I am a scientist, not male or female. A scientist.
My kindergarten teacher encouraged me to learn, as did my school headmaster, who gave me a grant to study.
Problems should be solved by talking and not in an aggressive manner.
I'm truly glad I've managed to get the public interested in questions about basic research.
My memories from my childhood are centered on my father's medical conditions alongside my constant desire to understand the principles of the nature around me.
Many ribosomes act simultaneously along the mRNA, forming superstructures called polysomes.
I wanted to reveal how genetic code is translated into protein. I knew a great application could be for antibiotics, since half of the useful ones target the ribosomes, but I didn't believe I could contribute to it. It was like the next Mount Everest to conquer. It was my dream to contribute something to humanity.
The world was not supportive. They look at me as a joke for 13 to 14 years until I could prove feasibility; then I had competitors. Those that laughed at me became my competitors.
I'm always having to get rid of reporters.
At the end of the 1970s, I was a young researcher at the Weizmann Institute with an ambitious plan to shed light on one of the major outstanding questions concerning living cells: the process of protein biosynthesis.
From the age of 11, I was cleaning floors, washing dishes, making sandwiches and being a cashier. Survival was the name of the game. Life was so hard that I had to struggle to keep up my standards. Under these conditions, I didn't think about science too much.
There are over 7,000 different types of proteins in typical eukaryotic cells; the total number depends on the cell class and function.
Words originating from the verb 'to die' were frequently used when I described my initial plans to determine the ribosome structure.
I was described as a dreamer, a fantasist, even as the village idiot. I didn't care. What I cared about was convincing people to allow me to go on with my work.
Once, when I tried to calculate the height of the balcony, I broke my arm. Another time, I wanted to see if water moves faster than kerosene. When my father came out to smoke, a fire broke out.
If one has curiosity, then one stands the chance of attain a high level of scientific inquiry.
