The 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz, and Ada E. Yonath for enlightening the science community on the structure and function of the ribosome, the protein factory of all living organisms. Out of the three big molecules for life (DNA, RNA, and proteins), proteins arguably do most of the work. They provide structural stability to our cells, give us mechanical motion in our muscles, transport the oxygen that we inhale, and play many other key parts in nearly every chemical reaction that occurs in cells.

DNA contains genetic information, but it is essentially a passive set of instructions and designs that cannot accomplish anything on its own. For there to be life, proteins must help transcribe the data in DNA into RNA, another carrier of information that is more chemically active than DNA, but still less functional than proteins. The messages in the RNA are translated in the ribosome to make specific sequences of proteins, which then goes on to perform essential biochemical functions. Thus, in studying the chemistry of life, we must understand how proteins are made in ribosomes.