Venki Ramakrishnan grew up in India and moved to the U.S.A. in 1971. After initially being trained as a physicist at Ohio University, he switched... » More

Venki Ramakrishnan grew up in India and moved to the U.S.A. in 1971. After initially being trained as a physicist at Ohio University, he switched to biology in 1976 at the University of California, San Diego. His interest in ribosomes dates back to 1978 when he joined Peter Moore’s laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University. He began his independent career at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1983. In 1995 he moved to the University of Utah to become a professor of biochemistry. Finally, in 1999, he moved to his current position as a scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. In the past, he has also been interested in chromatin structure and in x-ray crystallographic methods. He currently focuses entirely on ribosome structure and function. 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. In 2006, his laboratory determined the atomic structure of the entire ribosome bound to its mRNA and tRNA substrates, which has led to studies on the termination of protein synthesis. Ramakrishnan is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

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