NRI Wins Nobel Prize for Chemistry

And hails from Tamil Nadu


Oct 08, 2009

NRI Venkatraman Ramakrishnan honoured Noble Prize in chemestry along with two others for his productive work on ribosomes to develop antibiotics. Ramakrishnan who hails from Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu will share USD 1.4 million award with Thomas Steitz of the US and Ada Yonatha of Israel. All three used a technology called X-ray crystallography to track the position of each atom that makes up the ribosome. The experimentation of the structure of ribosome has led way to the development of next generation antibiotics. DNA is the instruction manual for the creation of protein whereas the ribosome is the machine that translates encoded information to turn into protein.

In reaction to the honour Ramakrishnan said “Well, I think it’s a great honour and surprise! I am very happy!”. “I have to say that I am deeply indebted to all of the brilliant associates, students and post docs who worked in my lab as science is a highly collaborative enterprise,” he added. Soon after his graduation in Physics from Baroda University in 1971, Ramakrishnan left for the US where he did his Ph.D in the same subject from Ohio University in 1976 and has been connected with the Cambridge University for the past 14 years. “I think it’s a mistake to define good work by awards. This is a typical mistake that the public or even the press make. None of you called me about my work even two days ago...right?” Ramakrishnan reacted to the media.


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