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Thomas Arthur Steitz (Milwaukee, 23 agosto 1940 – Branford, 9 ottobre 2018) è stato un biochimico statunitense, vincitore del premio Nobel per la chimica nel 2009 assieme a Ada Yonath e a Venkatraman Ramakrishnan per i suoi studi sulla struttura e sulla funzione dei ribosomi.
Thomas Arthur Steitz (August 23, 1940 – October 9, 2018) was an American biochemist, a Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University, and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, best known for his pioneering work on the ribosome.
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One Nobel prize sometimes leads to another. As a student in 1963, Thomas Steitz heard Max Perutz talk about the structure of myoglobin, the first protein to be solved at the resolution of individual atoms. Perutz had shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry the year before with his colleague John Kendrew, of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. Steitz later recalled that he was stunned, thanks to the diminutive Perutz’s stereoscopic slides, to see the structure “pop out in three dimensions over Max’s head”.
Grasping that this technique could answer questions about the molecular basis of life, Steitz joined a protein crystallography lab for his doctoral research. His scientific insight and deft hand with the notoriously tricky experiments led him eventually to the Sterling Professorship of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
In 2009, he received his own Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Ada E. Yonath) for his contribution to solving the immensely complex structure of the ribosome, the structure that translates genetic information into proteins in cells.
Steitz had an unerring eye for important problems. He set himself the task of unravelling the molecular basis of what Francis Crick had dubbed the central dogma of biology: that genes, made of DNA, direct the production of proteins through the mediation of RNA. His early work confirmed predictions that enzymes would change their 3D shape on binding to their substrates, and this led to work on interactions between proteins and nucleic acids. His group was the first to solve the structure of a protein that binds to DNA (a transcription factor), and the first to solve the structure of one of the enzymes that synthesizes DNA molecules, a DNA polymerase.
Born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Steitz spent his school holidays picking radishes and weeding onions on his grandfather’s nearby farm. At his local high school, he played the saxophone in the school band, and briefly considered becoming a professional musician. Instead, he won a scholarship to Lawrence College, a small liberal-arts school in Appleton, Wisconsin, where he majored in chemistry but also took courses in a range of humanities subjects. This brought opportunities to question the narrow beliefs of his upbringing, and to experience laboratory research.
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- 2018
10 ott 2018 · Thomas A. Steitz, a towering figure of late-20th-century science who shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for figuring out the structure of a huge molecule central to translating the genetic...
1 dic 2021 · Thomas A. Steitz was among the foremost of the generation that was responsible for an explosion in our understanding of the structure and function of biological macromolecules. His research career ...
23 nov 2018 · Biochemistry giant who illuminated ribosome structure. Venki Ramakrishnan and Richard Henderson Authors Info & Affiliations. Science. 23 Nov 2018. Vol 362, Issue 6417. p. 897. DOI: 10.1126/science.aav8253. Contents. Thomas A. Steitz, distinguished molecular and structural biologist, died on 9 October at the age of 78.
1 gen 2019 · Jan. 1, 2019. Thomas Arthur Steitz was a remarkable person, scientist and mentor. He was a Sterling professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University, a Howard Hughes Meafdical Institute investigator, a Nobel laureate and a giant in the field of structural biology.
