Ada E. Yonath: A Biography

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A pioneer in the field of biochemistry, Ada E. Yonath helped make many discoveries and lead several experiments to learn about ribosomes and related structures. She went to colleges and universities for several years, and was at the forefront of groundbreaking research. However, her early childhood life was not as easy as one would expect, given her success.
Ada Yonath was born on June 22, 1939 in Jerusalem, Israel, then known as the British mandate of Palestine. She was the only child of an extremely poor family, and her family shared “a rented four-room apartment with two additional families and their children”(Ada E. Yonath- Facts). In fact, they were so poor that her family could not even afford the books she became fascinated with (Bousso). She spent much of her spare time reading, fascinated by the world around her. By the time she was five, she was already conducting science experiments and measuring the world around her. However, schools in Israel at this time focused heavily on religion, not sciences. The schools in her area all taught the same traditional topics her parents had learned—men focused on Judaism and women learned the domestic skills required to run a house. Given her love of education and her fascination with the “principles of nature,” Yonath’s parents decided to work hard and save their money to send her to a secularized grammar school (Ada E. Yonath- Facts). However, when she was 11 her father died. While she and her mother took on many jobs, they could not afford to stay where they currently resided. They moved to Tel Aviv, near Yonath’s mother’s sister, and Yonath graduated in Tel Aviv (Ada E. Yonath- Facts).
Ada Yonath’s love for education did not stop after she graduated high school. After her comp...

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Works Cited
Ada E. Yonath - Facts". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2013. Web. 26 Nov 2013.
"APS User Shares the “Israeli Nobel” for Chemistry." Advanced Photon Source. US Department of Energy: Office of Science, 11 Jan. 2007. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. .
Bousso, Ron. "AFP: Ada Yonath: First Israeli Woman to Win a Nobel." AFP 7 Oct. 2009: n. pag. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. .
Lurie, Susan. "Professor Ada Yonath Speaks on Ribosomes." Esra Magazine: n. pag. Esra Magazine. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. .
Yonath, Ada E. Telephone interview by Adam Smith. 7 Oct. 2009. WebRepcurrentVotenoRatingnoWeight

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