The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009 was awarded jointly to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome". 
 

The rasearch showed what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at the atomic level. All of them have used a method called X-ray crystallography to map the position for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome. This knowledge can be put to a practical and immediate use; many of today's antibiotics cure various diseases by blocking the function of bacterial ribosomes. Without functional ribosomes, bacteria cannot survive. This is why ribosomes are such an important target for new antibiotics.
 

The Prize amount: SEK 10 million to be shared equally between the Laureates.