Nobel Prize-winning chemist Ada Yonath dies at 87

Ada Yonath, the renowned Israeli crystallographer who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the Israel Prize, has died at 87, according to the Weizmann Institute.

Weizmann, Yonath’s professional home for decades, says in a statement that her work helped “pave the way for the development of more advanced antibiotics and the fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria – one of the most pressing medical challenges of the 21st century. ”

Yonath was born in Jerusalem in 1939, lost her father at a young age and grew up in a poor family, according to Weizmann. She began working before age 12. But she continued her studies and earned her PhD in X-ray crystallography at Weizmann in 1968, leading to a distinguished career and long list of awards.

President Isaac Herzog says Yonath “was among the leading researchers in Israeli scientific history” and hailed her as a “globally pathbreaking woman, a pioneer who proved that curiosity, devotion to a goal and uncompromising determination can break the bounds of human knowledge.”