The ribosome is a large complex molecule which is responsible for catalyzing the formation of proteins from individual amino acids using messenger RNA as a template. This process is known as translation. Ribosomes are found in all living cells.

The sequence of DNA encoding for a protein may be copied many times into messenger RNA (mRNA) chains of a similar sequence. Ribosomes can bind to an mRNA chain and use it as a template for determining the correct sequence of amino acids in a particular protein. Amino acids are selected, collected and carried to the ribosome by transfer RNA (tRNA molecules), which enter one part of the ribosome and bind to the messenger RNA chain. The attached amino acids are then linked together by another part of the ribosome.

More than one ribosome may move along a single mRNA chain at one time, each "reading" its sequence and producing a corresponding protein molecule. Once the protein is produced it can then 'fold up' to produce a specific functional three-dimensional structure largely determined probabilistically by the pattern of charges in its sequence.

Ada E. Yonath (Hebrew: עדה יונת‎, pronounced [ˈada joˈnat]) (born 22 June 1939) is an Israeli crystallographer best known for her pioneering work on the structure of the ribosome. She is the current director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly of the Weizmann Institute of Science. In 2009, she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz for her studies on the structure and function of the ribosome, becoming the first Israeli woman to win the Nobel Prize out of ten Israeli Nobel laureates, the first woman from the Middle East to win a Nobel prize in the sciences,^{[citation needed]} and the first woman in 45 years to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. However, she said herself that there was nothing special about a woman winning the Prize.