Thomas A. Steitz's Birth Card: The 3 of Clubs

In the record

Thomas Arthur Steitz (August 23, 1940 – October 9, 2018) was an American biochemist, a Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University, and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, best known for his pioneering work on the ribosome. The birth-card coordinate for August 23 is the 3 of Clubs — a calendar position, not a forecast of the 2009 Chemistry prize.

Nobel Prize record

• 2009 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry — for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome

The 3 of Clubs coordinate

Thomas A. Steitz's birthday maps to the 3 of Clubs (The Creative Communicator). Card Blueprints treats that as a 365-day coordinate: solar value = 55 − (2 × month + day), and the year is unused. It is not a prediction about a Nobel Prize and not a verdict on Thomas A. Steitz. The card's own language, quoted as system copy rather than biography: You move an idea across more than one channel without abandoning the one that needs depth.

Live 3 of Clubs meaning page

Thomas A. Steitz in the public record

Steitz was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Ada Yonath "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome". Steitz also won the Gairdner International Award in 2007 "for his studies on the structure and function of the ribosome which showed that the peptidyl transferase (EC 2.3.2.12) was an RNA catalyzed reaction, and for revealing the mechanism of inhibition of this function by antibiotics". Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Steitz studied chemistry as an undergraduate at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, graduating in 1962. In June 2010, the University renamed its chemistry building Thomas A. Steitz Hall of Science. He received a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard University in 1966 where he worked under the direction of subsequent 1976 chemistry Nobel Prize winner William N. Lipscomb, Jr. While at Harvard, after the training task of determining the structure of the small molecule methyl ethylene phosphate, Steitz made contributions to determining the atomic structures of carboxypeptidase A (EC 3.4.17.1) and aspartate carbamoyltransferase (EC 2.1.3.2), each the largest atomic structure determined in its time.

Summarised from the lead section of the Wikipedia article Thomas A. Steitz (CC BY-SA 4.0). No biographical facts were written for this page beyond that article.

Where the record meets the 3 of Clubs

A card is a calendar coordinate, not a cause. What follows sets one line of the card's own published language beside one sentence of the sourced record, paired by a documented rule. It is a resemblance offered for the reader to weigh — not a claim about Thomas A. Steitz, and not a forecast of a Nobel Prize.

Ability to articulate complex ideas clearly

Thomas Arthur Steitz (August 23, 1940 – October 9, 2018) was an American biochemist, a Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University, and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, best known for his pioneering work on the ribosome.

Paired on the mind and communication — the domain ♣ governs in this system. Markers in the record: professor.

Also on the record

1. Steitz did postdoctoral research as a Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral Fellow at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology during 1967–1970.
2. Steitz briefly held an assistant professorship at the University of California, Berkeley, but he resigned on the grounds that the institution would not accept his wife Joan into a faculty position because she was a woman.
3. Both Tom and Joan Steitz instead joined the Yale faculty in 1970, where he continued to work on cellular and structural biology.
4. Steitz and Peter Moore determined the atomic structure of the large 50S ribosomal subunit using X-ray crystallography, and published their findings in Science in 2000.

Other laureates with this card

• Angus Deaton — 2015 Economic Sciences
• Charles Nicolle — 1928 Physiology or Medicine
• David J. Thouless — 2016 Physics
• Donald A. Glaser — 1960 Physics
• Elias Canetti — 1981 Literature
• Eugene Wigner — 1963 Physics
• Frances H. Arnold — 2018 Chemistry
• Hamilton O. Smith — 1978 Physiology or Medicine
• Hans Spemann — 1935 Physiology or Medicine
• Heike Kamerlingh Onnes — 1913 Physics
• Henri Becquerel — 1903 Physics
• Jean Dausset — 1980 Physiology or Medicine
• 14 more laureates share this card.

FAQ

What is Thomas A. Steitz's birth card?

The 3 of Clubs. August 23 maps to that card through the public Card Blueprints formula. The year of birth is not used.

Does a birth card predict a Nobel Prize?

No. These pages are coordinates, not fortune-telling. A birth card names a calendar day in a 52-card year. It does not forecast prizes, character, or fate.

Where do Thomas A. Steitz's dates come from?

Birth date 1940-08-23 is the Nobel Prize API v2.1 day-precision date, verified against Wikidata P569 (CC0, day precision, Gregorian preferred). The two sources match. Year-only Nobel dates and Nobel↔Wikidata conflicts are dropped, not guessed. Page hooks and evidence come from the Wikipedia REST summary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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