Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Co-Founder, Thomas A. Steitz, Ph.D., Awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in...( NEW HAVEN Conn. Oct. 7 /- Rib-X Pharm...),Health

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel drugs for the treatment of multi-antibiotic resistant infections, today announced that Rib-X Co-Founder and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board, Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, Thomas A. Steitz, Ph.D., has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2009 by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Steitz shares the prize with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom, and Ada E. Yonath, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. All three were praised for their work on using "X-ray crystallography to map the position for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome." Dr. Ramakrishnan is also on Rib-X's Scientific Advisory Board.

"Rib-X would like to extend its congratulations to Drs. Steitz, Ramakrishnan and Yonath on receiving the most esteemed award for scientific endeavors and accomplishments," said Dr. Susan Froshauer, President and Chief Executive Officer, Rib-X. "As one of our co-founders, Dr. Steitz recognized the importance of the ribosome early on, and he continues to perform a valuable role to us as the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board."

"I am excited by the prospect that our work on the structure of the ribosome and mechanisms of antibiotic binding is leading to potential new chemical classes which have the potential to treat a wide variety of multi-drug resistant bacterial infections," commented Dr. Steitz.

Dr. Peter Moore, Sterling Professor of Chemistry at Yale University and Dr. Harry Noller, Robert Louis Sinsheimer Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, also co-founders and part of Rib-X's Scientific Advisory
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