Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan is an Indian-American-British structural biologist and former President of the Royal Society of London. He shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome, the molecular machine responsible for translating genetic information into proteins in all living cells. Using X-ray crystallography, Ramakrishnan and his team at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge solved the atomic-resolution structure of the small ribosomal subunit (30S), revealing the detailed molecular mechanisms by which the ribosome reads the genetic code and decodes messenger RNA with high fidelity. This structural information illuminated how many clinically important antibiotics work: dozens of widely used antibiotics, including streptomycin, tetracycline, and spectinomycin, act by binding to the bacterial ribosome and disrupting translation. Understanding these binding sites at atomic resolution has profound implications for antibiotic drug development, particularly as antibiotic resistance becomes an escalating global health crisis. Beyond the Nobel work, Ramakrishnan has continued to study the mechanisms of translation, particularly elongation, termination, and ribosome recycling. He served as President of the Royal Society from 2015 to 2020, using the position to advocate for science policy, open access publishing, and the importance of international scientific collaboration. He is a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and has received numerous honorary degrees.