ADA YONATH

I was born in Jerusalem with a religious background and a rabbi as a father... it was rather poor, but what we did have, we did have books.

My parents were Zionists born in Poland. My father was a rabbi who didn't know much about science and ran a grocery store in the neighborhood with my mother's help.

There are over 7,000 different types of proteins in typical eukaryotic cells; the total number depends on the cell class and function.

If one has curiosity, then one stands the chance of attain a high level of scientific inquiry.

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.

The Weizmann Institute showed me respect and didn't require many administrative tasks, so I was quite independent. I did what I wanted.

For quite a while, I didn't receive a higher academic status. I didn't feel any discrimination against me as a woman scientist, but I hadn't produced a lot of science journal articles.

I don't distinguish between men and women. This is irrelevant to me, and I don't think in these terms.

I am against boycotts in general: boycotts against us as well as anything and everything that can be boycotted.

Words originating from the verb 'to die' were frequently used when I described my initial plans to determine the ribosome structure.

My kindergarten teacher encouraged me to learn, as did my school headmaster, who gave me a grant to study.

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.

Anyone who sits in our jails who is not just a criminal but what we call a terrorist, with or without blood on his hands - and these definitions are also unclear to me - should not be sitting in our custody.

Proteins are constantly being degraded. Therefore, simultaneous production of proteins is required.

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.

I was born in Jerusalem in 1939 to a poor family that shared a rented four-room apartment with two additional families and their children.

I'm always having to get rid of reporters.

It is a great honor for me to be able to express my sincere gratitude to the Nobel Foundation.

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.

During my time I had some very difficult years, and I had very pronounced competition, all by men.

People are obsessed with my haircut; everyone wants to do something with my hair before the ceremony. Very senior figures tell me their hairstylist wants to do my hair for free. It's surprising. People from television are interested almost exclusively in aspects of my hair and my hairdresser.

The ribosome is a machine that gets instructions from the genetic code and operates chemically in order to produce the product.

Many ribosomes act simultaneously along the mRNA, forming superstructures called polysomes.

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.

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.