India-born Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, a Cambridge scientist, has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry.   India-born Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, a Cambridge scientist, has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry for describing the structure of ribosomes, the molecules that translate the code of DNA into active proteins in the body.

Professor Ramakrishnan shares the prize with Thomas Steitz, of Yale University and Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Their work has led to breakthroughs in the development of antibiotics that disable infections by binding to specific pockets in the ribosome structure of bacteria. The prize money of 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.4-million) will be shared equally between the three scientists.

Ramakrishnan, 57, is the senior scientist and group leader at the Structural Studies Division of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. Ramakrishnan said that he wasn’t convinced when he got the morning phone call from the academy. “Well, you know, I thought it was an elaborate joke. I have friends who play practical jokes,” Ramakrishnan told The Associated Press by telephone from his lab in Cambridge. “I complimented him on his Swedish accent.”

Professor Ramakrishnan said that the breakthrough underlined the importance of funding research that did not have immediate applications. “The idea of supporting long-term basic research like that at LMB does lead to breakthroughs, the ribosome is already starting to show its medical importance,” he said.

The DNA inside every cell in all organisms holds the blueprint for how a human being, plant or bacterium looks and functions. But the DNA molecule itself is passive; it is the ribosomes in cells that put the blueprints into effect. Based on information stored in DNA, ribosomes make proteins to perform a range of vital jobs, such as creating skin and bone, building immune systems and transporting oxygen through the body. Human and bacterial ribosomes are slightly different, making the ribosome a good target for antibiotic therapy, which works by blocking the bacterium’s ability to make the proteins that it needs to function.

The trio demonstrated what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at an atomic level using an imaging method called X-ray crystallography. The technique allowed them to map the position of each of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome. Better targeting of the bacterial ribosome should also help to avoid negative effects on human cells and reduce the side-effects of taking antibiotics.

The research is also helping the design of antibiotics to treat people who are infected with a bacterium that has developed antibiotic resistance, for example, some of the strains of bacteria that cause tuberculosis. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan was born at Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu in 1952. He had his early schooling in Chidambaram and later did B.Sc (physics) from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Later on, he earned his Ph.D. in Physics (1976) from Ohio University, USA. He moved into biology at the University of California, San Diego, where he took a year of classes then conducted research with Dr Mauricio Montal, a membrane biochemist.

Even as a student, Venkatraman had the spark in him to climb great heights, his former teacher N.S Govindaraj, was quoted to have s a i d . Ramakrishnan’s former teacher recalled that the Nobel laureate was a bright and sincere student who would reach great heights like Sir C V Raman, who won the Nobel for physics in 1930. “Even when he was a student, I knew that he would reach great heights, even more than Sir C V Raman. He used to study and was very sincere in his duties,” said 82-year-old Govindaraj.

At the announcement of the prize at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the winners were described as “warriors in the struggle of the rising tide of incurable bacterial infections.” Indians around the world celebrated his success. The Maharaja Sayajirao University, in Vadodara in India, where Ramakrishnan had studied, cherished his achievement by distributing sweets and bursting crackers. In Chennai, academics and students expressed happiness over the selection of Ramakrishnan for the top award.

The Nobel prizes are given annually for achievements in chemistry, physics, medicine, peace, literature and economics. They were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the 1895 will of Swedish millionaire Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. Ramakrishnan joins an illustrious list of Indians and people of Indian origin who have won the Nobel Prize in various disciplines — including Rabindranath Tagore, C.V. Raman, Hargobind Khorana, Mother Teresa, S. Chandrashekhar and Amartya Sen.

L. Mahadevan, Professor of Applied Mathematics, School of Engineering & Applied Sciences,
Harvard University, Cambridge, one of the winner of the MA, MacArthur Fellows for 2009

LMahadevan, 44, De Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, is a mathematician who applies complex mathematical analyses to a variety of seemingly simple, but vexing, questions across the physical and biological sciences — how cloth folds when draped, how skin wrinkles, how flags flutter, how Venus flytraps snap closed. Through his explorations of shape and motion, in many different material types, sizes, and time frames, Mahadevan strives to identify commonalities of the fundamental nonlinear and nonequilibrium behavior driving them. One line of his research considers the relationship between the biochemistry and mechanics of structural molecules that form polymers, such as actin, within the cell. These investigations have parallels in his work on the hydrodynamics and elasticity of thin films and sheets (e.g., made of fabric). Mahadevan also considers properties of materials at larger scales, such as cell shape, adhesion, and migration in developmental biology, avalanche dynamics, or the role of water in determining the tensile characteristics of plants. Though he searches for and elucidates mathematical principles underpinning these complex behaviors, his focus remains on developing hypotheses that can be confirmed or rejected empirically in the lab. The unusually broad scope of his theoretical and experimental investigations defies facile categorization, but they are linked by an effort to discover the geometric and mechanical principles that determine the behavior of complex biological and physical systems.

L. Mahadevan received a B.Tech. (1986) from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, an M.S. (1987) from the University of Texas at Austin, and an M.S. (1992) and Ph.D. (1995) from Stanford University. Since 2003, he has been affiliated with Harvard University. He holds visiting professorships at the University of Oxford’s Mathematics Institute and the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India.

Computer vision technologist Maneesh Agrawala and applied mathematician L. Mahadevan among 24 MacArthur Fellows for 2009 The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation named 24 new MacArthur Fellows for 2009. The recipients will each receive $500,000 in “no strings attached” support over the next five years. MacArthur Fellowships come without stipulations and reporting requirements and offer Fellows unprecedented freedom and opportunity to reflect, create, and explore. “For nearly three decades, the MacArthur Fellows Program has highlighted the importance of creativity and risktaking in addressing pressing needs and challenges around the globe,” said MacArthur President Robert Gallucci. “Through these Fellowships, we celebrate and support exceptional men and women of all ages and in all fields who dream, explore, take risks, invent, and build in new and unexpected ways in the interest of shaping a better future for us all.”

Computer vision technologist Maneesh Agrawala one of the winner of the MA, MacArthur Fellows for 2009

Among the recipients this year are two Indian Americans: L Mahadevan, an applied mathematician investigating principles underlying complex behavior to address such accessible, but perplexing, questions as how flags flutter and skin wrinkles and Maneesh Agrawala, a computer scientist designing visual interfaces that enhance our ability to understand large quantities of complex information.

Working at the intersection of visualization, human-computer interaction, and computer graphics, Agrawala, 37,associate professor, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley draws on cognitive psychology to identify the key perceptual and design principles underlying graphic illustrations. His algorithms automatically generate legible and effective designs for a variety of data types. As a graduate student, Agrawala developed LineDrive, a fully automated system for rendering route maps that both takes into account myriad cognitive factors involved in a user’s navigation of routes and adapts cartographic techniques for emphasizing essential information. The resulting maps resemble hand-drawn sketches in which unnecessary details are simplified or omitted and a larger scale is used at key locations to avoid confusion. Agrawala also developed a system that generates accurate and intelligible step-by-step assembly instructions for everyday items as well as complex machines (e.g., aircraft engines). The system utilizes exploded views — so that individual components of the object are spatially separated — in order to provide the user with a more direct understanding of the actual steps required for assembly. Agrawala and colleagues subsequently expanded on this work to create a program that produces illustrations of complex, three-dimensional objects, such as anatomical models. The program includes an interface that allows users to explore the spatial relationships among components by isolating parts of an object to magnify, expand, or collapse. Agrawala’s novel approach to visualization and computer communication in these and many other projects is transforming how we use, synthesize, and comprehend the ever-increasing volume of digital information we encounter in our daily lives.

Maneesh Agrawala received a B.S. (1994) and a Ph.D. (2002) from Stanford University. He was affiliated with Microsoft Research (2002-2006) prior to joining the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley.

[ BY AJAY GHOSH & LAVANYA GARIKINA ]