Nobel Prize Winners of 2009

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan - Male - 57 years

Birth country: India

Motivation: for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome

Affiliation: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology - United Kingdom

Thomas A. Steitz - Male - 69 years

Birth country: USA

Motivation: for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome

Affiliation: Yale University - USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute - USA

Ada E. Yonath - Female - 70 years

Birth country: Israel

Motivation: for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome

Affiliation: Weizmann Institute of Science - Israel

Elinor Ostrom - Female - 76 years

Birth country: USA

Motivation: for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons

Affiliation: Indiana University - USA; Arizona State University - USA

Oliver E. Williamson - Male - 77 years

Birth country: USA

Motivation: for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm

Affiliation: University of California - USA

Herta Müller - Female - 56 years

Birth country: Romania

Motivation: who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed

Elizabeth H. Blackburn - Female - 60 years

Birth country: Australia

Motivation: for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase

Affiliation: University of California - USA

Carol W. Greider - Female - 48 years

Birth country: USA

Motivation: for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase

Affiliation: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine - USA

Jack W. Szostak - Male - 56 years

Birth country: United Kingdom

Motivation: for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase

Affiliation: Harvard Medical School - USA; Massachusetts General Hospital - USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute - USA

Barack Hussein Obama - Male - 48 years

Birth country: USA

Motivation: for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples

Charles Kuen Kao - Male - 75 years

Birth country: China

Motivation: for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication

Affiliation: Standard Telecommunication Laboratories - United Kingdom; Chinese University of Hong Kong - China

Willard S. Boyle - Male - 85 years

Birth country: Canada

Motivation: for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor

Affiliation: Bell Laboratories - USA

George E. Smith - Male - 79 years

Birth country: USA

Motivation: for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor

Affiliation: Bell Laboratories - USA