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Jack W. Szostak, Elizabeth Blackburn, and Carol Greider have won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Read our news story about the winning research.
Thomas A. Steitz, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, and Ada E. Yonath won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Read our news story about the winning research.
This animation from HHMI's Biointeractive web site, shows how ribosomes take genetic information, in the form of RNA, and turn it into proteins.
Watch this animation of the cell in action, including the ribosome at work, from Harvard University.
Learn about the latest advances in biological research from several Nobel Prize winners—including 2009 winner Elizabeth Blackburn—and other top-level scientists.
Nobel Prize Winner Thomas R. Cech explains how chromosomes are protected in this video from the 1995 Holiday Lectures.
These slides from HHMI's Biointeractive explain how the understanding of chromosomes and telomeres has advanced since Thomas R. Cech's 1995 lecture.
Nobel Prize Resources for Educators
Two HHMI investigators won the Nobel Prize this year. Thomas A. Steitz, with fellow scientists Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Ada E. Yonath, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on October 7 for their work on ribosomes. The ribosome is a molecular factory inside a cell that translates genetic information into the amino acids that become a protein.
Jack W. Szostak, with fellow scientists Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on October 5 for their discovery of caps at the end of chromosomes, called telomeres. Telomeres protect the chromosome and the DNA packed inside from breaking down when cells divide. When this process goes wrong, it can lead to cancer and aging-related diseases.
Szostak and Steitz are two of 14 active HHMI investigators to win a Nobel Prize. At the links on the sides, you can watch an animation of a ribosome inside a cell, hear a lecture from Elizabeth Blackburn, and learn about telomeres from former HHMI President and 1989 Nobel Prize winner Thomas R. Cech in our resources for educators.
Thomas A. Steitz (left), Jack W. Szostak (Right).
What Is Cool Science?
At Cool Science, we entertain questions of all kinds (Ask a Scientist). We encourage young scientists to get their hands dirty-virtually (Curious Kids). We offer high school and college students new approaches to cutting-edge science topics (BioInteractive). We provide educators with a host of innovative resources they can use in their classrooms (For Educators). We reveal what it takes to become a scientist (Becoming a Scientist). And we showcase an undergraduate science discovery project that may one day change the way science is taught (SEA).
We invite you to explore the many cool features of Cool Science.
Photos: Michael Marsland/Yale University and Mark Wilson
Hear Nobel laureate H. Robert Horvitz describe his latest work in programmed cell death in this talk from the University of Massachusetts.
Learn why Nobel laureate Eric Kandel—a 2008 Holiday Lectures speaker—decided to pursue a career in neuroscience in this video from HHMI's Biointeractive.
Find out how Roger Tsien’s work with glowing proteins—which earned him a 2008 Nobel Prize—is transforming biology.
Discover how perseverance and ingenuity helped two HHMI investigators, Linda Buck and Richard Axel, win the Nobel Prize for their breakthroughs in understanding smell.
Investigate a fundamental problem in microbial genetics with this course from Pomona College, which builds on the work of two Nobel laureates.
Watch two Nobel Prize winners discuss their groundbreaking work with C. elegans. They are featured in an online activity from the Dolan DNA Learning Center.
Read more about the many HHMI investigators who have won the Nobel Prize.