Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Venkataraman Ramakrishnan WINS NOBEL for Chemistry

Indian American Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, 2 others win Nobel chemistry
Stockholm: Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz and Israeli Ada Yonath won the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday formapping ribosomes, the protein-producing factories within cells, at the atomic level.




Born in 1952 in Chidambaram, Ramakrishnan shares the Nobel prize with Thomas E Steitz (US) and Ada E Yonath (Israel) for their "studies of the structure and function of the ribosome".
Ramakrishnan earned his B.Sc. In Physics (1971) from Baroda University and his Ph.D. In Physics (1976) from Ohio University.
He moved into biology at the University of California, San Diego, where he took a year of classes, then conducted research with Dr Mauricio Montal, a membrane biochemist.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their work has been fundamental to the scientific understanding of life and has helped researchers develop antibiotic cures for various diseases.
Yonath is the fourth woman to win the Nobel chemistry prize and the first since 1964, when Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin of Britain received the prize. This year's three laureates all generated three-dimensional models that show how different antibiotics bind to ribosomes.
"These models are now used by scientists in order to develop new antibiotics, directly assisting the saving of lives and decreasing humanity's suffering," the academy said in its announcement.
"All three 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," the academy said.
Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite, established the Nobel Prizes in his will in 1895. The first awards were handed out six years later.
Each prize comes with a 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) purse, a diploma, a gold medal and an invitation to the prize ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10. The Peace Prize is handed out in Oslo.
On Monday, three American scientists shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells, an insight that has inspired new lines of research into cancer.
The physics prize on Tuesday was split between a Hong Kong-based scientist who helped develop fiber-optic cable and two Canadian and American researchers who invented the ``eye'' in digital cameras _ technology that has revolutionized communications and science.
The literature and peace prize winners will be announced later this week and the economics announcement is set for Monday.
Source: Associated Press

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Dr V Ramakrishnan should have received this honour years back. Any way it is not too late and he received it now. Great news to all, his dad Prof Ramakrishnan is sure a proud man. Congratulations to prof V Ramakrishnan
Ramchand

aara kavingan said...

ramchand sir did you know mr.ramakishnan? pls send his e mail address. am journalist from tamilnadu. we proud of tamil scientist. thanks sir

ಜಲನಯನ said...

Dear Ramchand, we should be produ of our scientists, ISRO showing evidence of the existence of water on the Moon...despite several eyebrows raising after the Chandrayana getting terminated before schedule...
My senior in my college, College of Fisheries Dr.B.Venkatesh who is in the Singapore Biotech Research is a role model for us...he has teamed with the Nobel Lauret Benner on molecular (gene) level evidences in fish that can be linked with the investigations on human genome project.

Kavingan sir, deifinetely TamilNadu should be proud as we all Indians also feel...lets not go to norrow geographical limits lets all congratulate him

ರೂಪಾ ಶ್ರೀ said...

It feels great to have such people :) Sir, can u please get me some links where i can know about the work regarding Fish and HGP??

ಸುಮ said...

yes,definetly we feel very proud to have such scintists.

R.Srinivasan said...

We are proud that Dr.V.Ramakrishnan born in Tamil Nadu has received the highest honour for a scientist. No doubt it is due to his hard work and selfless devotion to his chosen field. We wish him all the best

R.Srinivasan,Chennai

ಜಲನಯನ said...

Dear Roopashri,
Its very easy get these links...just type human genome on google scholar....host of sites open-up. Here I am giving some links for your help. This first site gives a lot of info including links...

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/home.shtml

http://www.genome.gov/10001772

This link below gives you access to full paper by my senior (my college) Dr. B. Venkatesh (Bangalorean) on shark genome work

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050101

ಜಲನಯನ said...

Dear Suma, good Indian and supporter of science and scientists will always appreciate the hard work of scientists, this lands us on the moon of joy when our own scientist get the Nobel Prize.....the evnts have clearly shown the in-built problems of our political system and red-tapism that prevents our scientists from achieving something while in india...after Dr. Chandrasekharana..now its Dr. Ramakrishnan.
Finally the Winner is Hard Work and Eminenence

ಜಲನಯನ said...

Dear Srinivasan sir, tru we are all proud of Dr. Ramakrishnan...look at the team he is atleast 7-8 yrs younger than the others
Thank you for your response