Three researchers whose studies of ribosomes have helped explain how the cell components translate DNA information into life, and who thereby paved the way for new medical treatments, have won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced this morning,

The winners, who will equally share the prize, worth about $1.4-million this year, are Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in Cambridge, England; Thomas A. Steitz, of Yale University; and Ada E. Yonath, of the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, Israel. They are the latest in a long line of chemistry Nobel laureates who are being honored for their work in molecular biology.

The scientists, who used a technique called X-ray crystallography to map the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up a ribosome, showed through their research what ribosomes look like and how they operate. Ribosomes control the chemistry of living organisms by manufacturing proteins according to DNA instructions. The proteins, of which there are tens of thousands of types, including hormones, antibodies, and enzymes, make life possible. And knowing how ribosomes function can help researchers devise antibiotics to fight bacteria by attacking their own ribosomes.

The three winners will collect their prizes at a ceremony in December in Stockholm, Two other Nobel Prizes have been announced so far this week: in medicine on Monday and in physics on Tuesday. The literature prize is to be announced on Thursday.