Science Changes the World

By Prof. Daniel Zajfman
President of the Weizmann Institute of Science

Yesterday, Ada Yonath moved Israeli science a major step forward on the path to excellence. This step started about 30 years ago with the courageous decision of a young woman scientist to deal with a scientific question that, at the time, seemed larger than life: How do living cells decipher the genetic code and build proteins according its instructions? Proteins are the building blocks and the laborers that activate the living body. Just how does a ribosome – one of the most complicated “machines” in biological systems – work?

We are talking about a goal that was thought to be unattainable. But scientists know all about reaching “unattainable” goals. In the year 1954, for example, many international experts thought that the tiny state of Israel should not even attempt to build an electronic computer. But Weizmann scientists did build “WEIZAC,” the ninth computer in the world, and this one machine would become the root of the Israeli hardware and software industry. After the first computer in Israel, the Institute operated the first particle accelerator in Israel, developed the first Israeli drug to win F.D.A approval, and made many additional discoveries. All these projects required long-term vision, perseverance, and determination. This is the way of science: It turns the impossible into the possible. Science changes the world and shapes our lives. We can only say one thing with certainty when discussing the future: It will be very different from the past and the present.

We are talking about an utter victory of the human spirit, of the striving for a better understanding of the world and our place within it. About a fascinating adventure that grants young scientists nearly complete freedom to follow their curiosity. Scientists at the Weizmann Institute set out every day on fascinating journeys into the unknown. Nobody dictates their research path. Nobody asks them: “What's in it for us?” But it is a fact that sometimes they return from their journeys bearing precious gifts for all mankind.

When Chaim Leib Pekeris built WEIZAC at the Institute, he did not know that his computer would eventually lead Israel from an agrarian to a hi-tech economy. When Ada Yonath decided that she wanted to understand the ribosome, she did not know that the insights stemming from her research would help humankind to overcome antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

And today at the Weizmann Institute of Science, several dozen young Israeli scientists who have recently returned from abroad are planning and starting out on daring research journeys. At times, they may seem to us to aim too high – journeys toward goals that appear to be unreachable. But the Institute that supported Chaim Pekeris and Ada Yonath supports them too; it believes in them and excitedly looks forward to their accomplishments. In this sense, the decision to grant Ada Yonath the Nobel Prize for Chemistry reminds us all that it is not only permitted, but worthwhile to aim for goals that seem to be unreachable. That there is a reward for courage, for vision, and for persistence. This reward: The right to change and shape the world of the future – the world in which our children will live.