2020
The TNQ Distinguished Lectures in the Life Sciences Series I. 10th Edition.
Venki Ramakrishnan
My Adventures in the Ribosome
Featured
Speaker
Nobel Laureate Dr Venki Ramakrishnan was the Tenth Edition Speaker
of
the TNQ Distinguished Lectures in the Life Sciences.
Dr Venki Ramakrishnan, the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the 62nd President of The Royal Society, was the 2020 Speaker of the TNQ Distinguished Lectures in the Life Sciences. He gave lectures in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, and New Delhi in January 2020.
Venki Ramakrishnan was born in India, where he got his bachelor’s degree in physics from Baroda University. He moved to the USA in 1971 and received his Ph.D. in physics from Ohio University in 1976. By this time, however, Dr Ramakrishnan had become interested in biology. He therefore went to graduate school again, to study biology at the University of California, San Diego. In 1978, he began post-doctoral work with Peter Moore at Yale University, where he first began working on ribosomes — the large molecular machines in all cells that read instructions in our genes to make proteins.
About the Speaker
From 1983-95 he was a staff scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory before becoming a professor of biochemistry at the University of Utah. In 1999, he moved to his current position as a group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.
After working on components of the ribosome for 15 years, Ramakrishnan’s lab began researching the structure of the entire 30S subunit of the ribosome in the mid-1990s. In 2000, his laboratory determined the atomic structure of the 30S ribosomal subunit and its complexes with ligands and antibiotics. This work has led to insights into how the ribosome “reads” the genetic code, as well as into various aspects of antibiotic function.
Research
In the last few years, Dr Ramakrishnan’s lab has determined the high-resolution structures of functional complexes of the entire ribosome at various stages along the translational pathway, which has led to insights into its role in protein synthesis during decoding, peptidyl transfer, translocation, and termination. More recently his laboratory has been applying cryo-electron microscopy to study eukaryotic and mitochondrial translation.
From 1983-1998, Dr Ramakrishnan’s lab also worked on chromatin structure, determining the structure of the linker histone H1/H5, its location in the 30 nm chromatin filament, and the first structure of a histone modifying enzyme, the acetyl-transferase Hat1. He has also made contributions to methods for phasing crystallographic data using multiwavelength anomalous scattering.
Venki Ramakrishnan is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Venki Ramakrishnan is also the author of Gene Machine, a popular book on the quest for the structure of the ribosome.
Awards & Honours
1991
Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry
2001
Member of the National Academy of Sciences, elected
2002
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected
2012
Albert Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research
2012
Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences
2012
Associate Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, elected
2013
Massry Prize
2014
Member of the National Academy of Medicine, elected
2015
Foreign Member, Indian National Science Academy, elected
2017
Shaw Prize in Life Sciences and Medicine
2019
Canada Gairdner International Award
Other Resources
Profile of Venki Ramakrishnan, Nobel Prize
Venki Ramakrishnan’s Nobel Lecture, Nobel Prize
Venki Ramakrishnan’s Slides, Nobel Prize
Structure of the Translational Apparatus, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Profile of Venki Ramakrishnan, The Royal Society
The Story of Deciphering the Ribosome with Venki Ramakrishnan, The Royal Institution
Nobel Prize Winners Aren’t All That Bright, Mumbai Mirror
Indian Scientists Must Try to Work on Interesting Subjects, The Hindu
Lecture
Schedule
Bengaluru
January 18, 2020, 4.30 p.m.
JN Tata Auditorium Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Campus
Introduction by
Professor P Balaram
Former Director Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
Mumbai
January 20, 2020, 4.30 p.m.
Homi Bhabha Auditorium Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Campus
Introduction by
Professor Sandip Trivedi
Director Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR)
Chennai
January 22, 2020, 6.00 p.m.
Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao (Lady Andal) Concert Hall, Chetpet
Introduction by
N. Ram
Chairman The Hindu Group of Publications
New Delhi
January 24, 2020, 4.30 p.m.
Jawaharlal Auditorium All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Campus
Introduction by
Professor K. Vijay Raghavan
Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) Government of India
Coimbatore
(Livestreamed from New Delhi) IIM
Auditorium, KGiSL Campus, Saravanampatti
Other Lectures
Helen Hobbs
Genetic Disorders of Dietary Excess: Getting to the Heart of the Matter
David Anderson
The Neural Circuitry of Sex and Violence
Mary-Claire King
Understanding Inherited Breast and Ovarian Cancer: From Gene Discovery to Precision Medicine and Public Health