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‘I am happy to belong to 3 nations’
"Before I die, I want to see a long queue of people applying for visas to go to Bangalore," says Nobel chemistry aureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, who spent three decades of his academic life in the United States and now lives in the United Kingdom.
"Before I die, I want to see a long queue of people applying for visas to go to Bangalore," says Nobel chemistry aureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, who spent three decades of his academic life in the United States and now lives in the United Kingdom.
Born in Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu, Dr Ramakrishnan, graduated from Baroda.
Dr Venki, as he’s known among friends and colleagues, took a risk by deciding to dedicate all his energy on studying the ribosome, a cell component that makes proteins from amino acids, nearly 10 years ago.
An optimist by nature, Dr Venki is the head of Structural Studies Department in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge where he developed the technique of obtaining high resolution images of the ribosome.
He agrees that the daily process of science can be tedious. “People have joked that molecular biology is essentially moving small quantities of clear liquids from one tube to another. What keeps scientists motivated is the knowledge that they are working on something important and that if they make the discovery it will add to the knowledge base of the humanity,” Dr Venki said.
A keen cyclist peddling to work everyday, Dr Venki sees Nobel Prize as a nice fringe benefit, not the goal. “There is a misconception that scientists do their work in order to win the Nobel Prize, if they did they would be crazy. 99.99 per cent (of) scientists would not get any awards,” he felt.
“If you look at the previous Nobel laureates many of them have gone on to do great work after they received the award.”
He doesn’t fit the mould of a stereotypical scientist who spends most of his time in the lab. “My typical day is about eight to 10 hours long, occasionally you have to work round-the-clock but usually I do not last more than 10 hours.”
When the Nobel Prize for chemistry was announced there was a bit of confusion about Dr Venki’s nationality as he has lived in three countries so far.
“The issue of identity is really complicated one. I tell people that I am an American of Indian origin living in the UK but both Indian and British, regardless of what I say, take me as an Indian, whereas Americans regard me as an American because there your identity is not defined by your ancestry. I think all three countries have contributed to my development, I am happy to be seen as belonging to all three countries.”
