Scientists HAR GOBIND KHURANA NOBLE PRIZE

Achievement

1. Har Gobind Khurana

2. Introduction Born in Raipur – small village in Punjab British India Father for an agricultural taxation clerk in British Indian govt Although from humble background - father keen on educating the children – primary education in village school Bachelor’s and master’s degree from in Punjab University in Lahore on govt scholarships Moved to England in University of Liverpool - Govt of India Fellowship -to study organic chemistry- received PhD in 1948 Post doctoral studies in Zurich with Prof Vladimir Prelog Back to India post partition due to fellowship bond in 1949 – the new Govt of India annulled the bond – accepted position at Cambridge , England till 1952 In 1952 moved to Vancouver, University of British Columbia – accepted position with British Columbia Research Council

3. Post Doctoral fellowship at ETH Zurich Prof Vladimir Prelog reviewed his thesis at Liverpool – alkaloid synthesis and melanin production Hired based on his doctoral research However was unpaid – lived inside the lab – survived on rice and milk! - exhausted all his savings Despite the hardships, Gobind formed an instant and long-lasting bond with Prelog - a legendary mentor whom Gobind credits for influencing his approach to work and his integrity as a scientist He spent hours in the library reviewing the German organic chemistry literature Came across a description of a little-known synthetic reagent, carbodiimide - forgotten essentially forgotten. Though of no use to his work at the time, Gobind would remember the reagent years later and apply it to create a revolution in biochemistry.

4. Working with nucleic acids at University of British Columbia At Cambridge - initially started working with peptides using carbodiimide reagent Shifted interest to studying chemical linkages between nucleotides in DNA British Columbia Research Council’s director Gordon Shrum visited Cambridge - was looking for a chemist - interviewed Khorana - confessed later that hiring an organic chemist is cheap as they need only test tubes!! No start up package - unlimited freedom - breakthrough synthesis of ADP and ATP using carbodiimide He later synthesized cyclic-nucleotides, asymmetric dinucleotides, and other molecules of biological significance. Notable scientists including Paul Berg, A. Kornberg, Eugene Kennedy, and many others, visited Gobind’s laboratory to learn how to prepare and use the new carbodiimide reagents Synthesized the most complicated cofactor – Coenzyme A in 1960

5. Move to University of Wisconsin -Madison After Coenzyme A synthesis – he moved to University of Wisconsin –Madison started working on chemical synthesis of gene he worked on the genetic code and chemical synthesis of a transfer RNA gene. In 1970s, moved to Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge He switched to working on membranes and signal transduction, problems on which he worked for more than 30 years until his retirement in 2007 Doing inter-disciplinary research in those times - thought ahead of the times!

6. Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine in 1968 At University of Wisconsin –Madison – did Nobel Prize winning work on elucidating genetic code He shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1968 (with Robert W. Holley and Marshall W. Nirenberg), at age 46, for contributions toward elucidating the genetic code one of the great scientific achievements of the age of molecular biology. Energized by the Nirenberg and Matthaei experiment from 1961, where a cell-free extract produced a protein made entirely of phenylalanine when poly-U was added, Gobind’s group at the Institute for Enzyme Research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison worked around the clock in double shifts to synthesize all of the possible triplet trinucleotides, thus providing a firm basis to establish the complete codon assignments and to determine how the code was read Did not stop! - In 1972, Gobind described the total chemical synthesis of a functional tRNA gene in an unprecedented and still unsurpassed achievement in chemical biology The achievement was even more striking if we stop to consider that when the project was initiated, in 1960, there was no reliable method to synthesize more than a di-nucleotide in reasonable yield, nor was there a way to sequence DNA.

7. Har Gobind – deep thinker Later turned his focus toward biological membrane and elucidated the mechanism o proton transport in light transduction by bacteriorhodopsin. His most recent wor was with the mammalian visual sensor system and G protein–coupled receptors. Would often go to the mountains or woods to write research papers On the day of his Nobel prize announcement - he was among the last at the university to hear about it. As he often did, he had gone to a rented cottage by a lake out side Madison with no telephone or radio, to write papers. His wife Esther had to drive over to give him the news. At 89, one of the great chemists of the 20 th century died on November 9, 2011. H. Gobind Khorana, a founder of what we now call chemical biology and a pioneer at the dawn of the age of molecular biology