17 Facts About Har Gobind Khorana

Har Gobind Khorana was an Indian American biochemist.

Har Gobind Khorana became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1966, and received the National Medal of Science in 1987.

Har Gobind Khorana was born to Ganpat Rai Khorana and Krishna Devi, in Raipur, a village in Multan, Punjab, British India in a Punjabi Hindu Khatri family.

Har Gobind Khorana's father was a patwari, a village agricultural taxation clerk in the British Indian government.

Har Gobind Khorana did not even own a pencil until age 6.

Har Gobind Khorana lived in British India until 1945, when he moved to England to study organic chemistry at the University of Liverpool on a Government of India Fellowship.

Har Gobind Khorana worked for nearly a year on alkaloid chemistry in an unpaid position.

Har Gobind Khorana returned to England on a fellowship to work with George Wallace Kenner and Alexander R Todd on peptides and nucleotides.

Har Gobind Khorana stayed in Cambridge from 1950 until 1952.

Har Gobind Khorana moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, with his family in 1952 after accepting a position with the British Columbia Research Council at University of British Columbia.

Har Gobind Khorana was excited by the prospect of starting his own lab, a colleague later recalled.

Har Gobind Khorana did this by extending the above to long DNA polymers using non-aqueous chemistry and assembled these into the first synthetic gene, using polymerase and ligase enzymes that link pieces of DNA together, as well as methods that anticipated the invention of polymerase chain reaction.

Har Gobind Khorana's invention have become automated and commercialized so that anyone now can order a synthetic oligonucleotide or a gene from any of a number of companies.

Har Gobind Khorana brought the power of chemical synthesis to bear on deciphering the genetic code, relying on different combinations of trinucleotides.

The mission of the Har Gobind Khorana Program is to build a seamless community of scientists, industrialists, and social entrepreneurs in the United States and India.

In 2009, Har Gobind Khorana was hosted by the Har Gobind Khorana Program and honored at the 33rd Steenbock Symposium in Madison, Wisconsin.

Har Gobind Khorana died on 9 November 2011, in Concord, Massachusetts, at the age of 89.