Venkatraman Ramakrishnan was born on 1 April 1952 and is an Indian-born British and American structural biologist.
24 Facts About Venki Ramakrishnan
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Venki Ramakrishnan shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas A Steitz and Ada Yonath for research on the structure and function of ribosomes.
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Venki Ramakrishnan served as President of the Royal Society from 2015 to 2020.
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Venki Ramakrishnan's mother obtained a PhD in psychology from McGill University in 1959.
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Lalita Venki Ramakrishnan, his younger sister, is professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Venki Ramakrishnan began work on ribosomes as a postdoctoral fellow with Peter Moore at Yale University.
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Venki Ramakrishnan continued to work on ribosomes from 1983 to 1995 as a staff scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
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In 1999, Venki Ramakrishnan's laboratory published a 5.5 angstrom resolution structure of the 30S subunit.
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Venki Ramakrishnan is known for his past work on histone and chromatin structure.
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Venki Ramakrishnan was elected a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2002, a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2003, and a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2004.
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In 2007, Venki Ramakrishnan was awarded the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine and the Datta Lectureship and Medal of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies.
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Venki Ramakrishnan received India's second highest civilian honor, the Padma Vibhushan, in 2010.
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In 2008, Venki Ramakrishnan won the Heatley Medal of the British Biochemical Society, and became a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and a foreign Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy.
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Venki Ramakrishnan has been a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences since 2010.
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Venki Ramakrishnan has received honorary degrees from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, University of Utah and University of Cambridge.
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Venki Ramakrishnan is an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford.
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Venki Ramakrishnan was knighted in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to molecular biology, but does not generally use the title "Sir".
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In 2017, Venki Ramakrishnan received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
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Venki Ramakrishnan was included as one of 25 Greatest Global Living Indians by NDTV Channel, India on 14 December 2013.
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Venki Ramakrishnan is internationally recognised for determination of the atomic structure of the 30S ribosomal subunit.
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Venki Ramakrishnan has made substantial contributions to understanding how chromatin is organised, particularly the structure of linker histones and their role in higher order folding.
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Venki Ramakrishnan was made a member of the Order of Merit in 2022.
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Venki Ramakrishnan married Vera Rosenberry, an author and illustrator of children's books, in 1975.
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Venki Ramakrishnan's stepdaughter, Tanya Kapka, is a doctor in Oregon, and his son, Raman Ramakrishnan, is a cellist based in New York.