Thomas A. Steitz (1940–2018) was an influential American biochemist and Sterling Professor at Yale University. After earning his Ph.D. at Harvard (1966), he spent three years at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, as a Jane Coffin Childs postdoctoral fellow, immersing himself in early protein crystallography research.
At Yale, Steitz’s team used X-ray crystallography to solve the atomic structure of the large ribosomal subunit, publishing the breakthrough in 2000. This work provided the first atomic-level map of the cell’s protein-making machinery, a major advance in biology and medicine.
He was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, shared with Ramakrishnan and Yonath, for studying the structure and function of the ribosome. Steitz also received the Gairdner International Award (2007), Rosenstiel Medal (2001), and the AAAS Newcomb-Cleveland Prize.
Steitz co-founded RibX Pharmaceuticals, now Melinta Therapeutics, to develop new antibiotics targeting ribosomal structures and addressing multidrug resistant infections. A dedicated mentor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator since 1986, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1990 and became a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 2011. Learn more.