Venki Ramakrishnan

Venki Ramakrishnan, a Nobel Prize winner for his work on the structure of the ribosome

Early life and education

Venki Ramakrishnan, CH FRS FMedSci (born 1 April 1952) is an Indian-born British-American structural biologist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009 with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada Yonath for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome.

Ramakrishnan was born in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India. He completed his B.Sc. degree in Physics from Presidency College, Madras (now Chennai) in 1971, and his M.A. and PhD degrees in Physics from the Ohio University in Athens, Ohio in 1976 and 1978 respectively.

Career and research

After completing his PhD, Ramakrishnan worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.

In 1989, he was appointed a group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, where he began his research on the structure of the ribosome. The ribosome is a large molecular machine that is responsible for protein synthesis. Ramakrishnan's work on the structure of the ribosome has led to a better understanding of how proteins are made and how antibiotics work.

In 2009, Ramakrishnan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the structure and function of the ribosome. He is currently the president of the Royal Society.

Awards and honors

In addition to the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Ramakrishnan has received numerous other awards and honors, including:

• The Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine (2007)
• The Royal Medal (2009)
• The Copley Medal (2017)

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the United States National Academy of Sciences.

Personal life

Ramakrishnan is married to Musiri Selvi, a Carnatic musician. They have two children.