Venki Ramakrishnan: "The Quest for the Structure of the Machine That Reads Our Genes."

This special Biochemistry Seminar, presented by Nobel Laureate Venki Ramakrishnan, is free and open to the public. No tickets are required, but please RSVP if you intend to come.

Describing his work leading up the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Nobel Prize organization wrote:

An organism's vital functions are managed by large, complex protein molecules produced in cells' ribosomes. There, genetic information from "messenger RNA" is translated into chains of amino acids that then build proteins. Using a method known as x-ray crystallography, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and other researchers were able to collaborate to map the structure of ribosomes, made up of hundreds of thousands of atoms, in 2000. Among other applications, this has been important in the production of antibiotics.

Dr. Ramakrishnan is currently the President of the Royal Society of London, and Group Leader in the Structural Studies Division at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. He is the author of the book Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome.

A book signing will follow lecture. Limited quantities will be available for purchase on site, but we suggest that you to pre-order a copy from the Caltech Store.