Dr. Venki Ramakrishnan, Nobel Prize laureate and Group Leader in the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, United Kingdom, will be presenting his talk "My Adventures in the Ribosome” as part of the IGB's Pioneers in Genomic Biology lecture series, at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at noon on October 10, 2023.

Ramakrishnan is a biologist whose many scientific contributions include his work on the atomic structure of the ribosome. As the site within living cells where the genetic information is read to synthesise proteins from amino acids, improved understanding of the ribosome has yielded many fundamental biological insights. His work has advanced our understanding of how the ribosome works and how antibiotics inhibit it. He has also worked on histone and chromatin structure, which help us to understand how DNA is organized in cells. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on ribosomal structure and was knighted in 2012. He is a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina and EMBO, a Foreign Member of the Indian National Science Academy, and a former President of the Royal Society.

Ramakrishnan describes the ribosome as an "ancient and enormous molecular machine" that reads genetic information on mRNA to synthesize proteins. Although it was discovered in the 1950s, it took several decades to determine an atomic structure of the ribosome because of its complexity. Ramakrishnan's talk will give an overview of his efforts to unravel its structure, and touch on his own career which involved living on three continents and switching from his initial training in physics to learning and carrying out research in molecular biology.

Held in the Foellinger Great Hall in the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, this talk is free and open to the public. View details on the the KCPA website.

Ramakrishnan will join his son, renowned cellist Raman Ramakrishnan, and concert pianist and conductor Benjamin Hochman that evening for music, discussion, and a book signing for "Gene Machine" beginning at 7:30pm, also at KCPA. Details available here.