A Cambridge scientist has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry for describing the structure of ribosomes, the molecules that translate the code of DNA into active proteins in the body.

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), shares the prize with Thomas Steitz, of Yale University, and Ada Yonath, of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Their work has led to breakthroughs in the development of antibiotics that disable infections by binding to specific pockets in the ribosome structure of bacteria.

The DNA inside every cell in all organisms holds the blueprint for how a human being, plant or bacterium looks and functions. But the DNA molecule itself is passive; it is the ribosomes in cells that put the blueprints into effect. Based on information stored in DNA, ribosomes make proteins to perform a range of vital jobs, such as creating skin and bone, building immune systems and transporting oxygen through the body.

Human and bacterial ribosomes are slightly different, making the ribosome a good target for antibiotic therapy, which works by blocking the bacterium’s ability to make the proteins that it needs to function.

The trio demonstrated what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at an atomic level using an imaging method called X-ray crystallography. The technique allowed them to map the position of each of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome.

Better targeting of the bacterial ribosome should also help to avoid negative effects on human cells and reduce the side-effects of taking antibiotics.

The research is also helping the design of antibiotics to treat people who are infected with a bacterium that has developed antibiotic resistance, for example, some of the strains of bacteria that cause tuberculosis.

At the announcement of the prize at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the winners were described as “warriors in the struggle of the rising tide of incurable bacterial infections”.

Professor Ramakrishnan said that the breakthrough underlined the importance of funding research that did not have immediate applications. “The idea of supporting long-term basic research like that at LMB does lead to breakthroughs, the ribosome is already starting to show its medical importance,” he said. The prize of 10 million Swedish kronor (£818,000) will be shared equally between the three scientists.

Professor Yonath’s role was in creating the first ribosome crystals in the 1980s. The ribosome is a complex structure of more than 50 different proteins, making it hundreds of times larger than other biological molecules, such as haemoglobin, that scientists had succeeded in turning into crystal forms at the time.

From these structures researchers were able to determine how ribosomes follow the amino-acid recipes embedded in the code of the DNA and bind the necessary units together to produce proteins.

Lord Drayson,the Science Minister, congratulated Professor Ramakrishnan, saying the breakthrough was as relevant to health as the discovery of penicillin. “By relentlessly exploring the arrangement of atoms in the ribosome, Venki and his team have been ... helping in the design of antibiotics and laying the foundations of synthetic biology,” he said.

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