Har Gobind Khorana

Har Gobind Khorana, or Hargobind Khorana Hindi: हरगोविंद खुराना, (Punjabi: ਹਰਿ ਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਖੁਰਾਨਾ , born January 9, 1922) is an Indian American molecular biologist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (shared with Robert W. Holley and Marshall Warren Nirenberg) in 1968 for his work on the interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis. Khorana and Nirenberg were also awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in the same year. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1966, and subsequently received the National Medal of Science. He currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States serving as MIT's Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Biology and Chemistry, Emeritus.

Early life and Education

Khorana was born in Raipur, Kabirwala, Khanewal, a village in British India (now Pakistan). His father was the village "patwari", or taxation official. He was homeschooled by his father, and he later attended D.A.V. Multan High School. He finished his B.Sc. from Punjab University, Lahore in 1943 and M.Sc from Punjab University in 1945. In 1945, he began studies at the University of Liverpool. After earning a PhD in 1948, he continued his postdoctoral studies in Zürich (1948-49). Subsequently, he spent two years at Cambridge and his interests in proteins and nucleic acids took root at that time. In 1952 he went to the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and in 1960 moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1970 Khorana became the Alfred Sloan Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he worked until retiring in 2007. He is a member of the Board of Scientific Governors at The Scripps Research Institute, and currently holds Professor Emeritus status at MIT.

Family

Khorana married Esther Elizabeth Sibler, who is of Swiss origin, in 1952. They have three children: Julia Elizabeth (born May 4, 1953), Emily Anne (born October 18, 1954), and Dave Roy (born July 26, 1958).

Khorana’s work & Nobel Prize (Nobel Foundation link below)

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) with two repeating units (UCUCUCU → UCU CUC UCU) produced two alternating amino acids. This, combined with the Nirenberg and Leder experiment, showed that UCU codes for Serine and CUC codes for Leucine.

RNAs with three repeating units (UACUACUA → UAC UAC UAC, or ACU ACU ACU, or CUA CUA CUA) produced three different strings of amino acids.

RNAs with four repeating units including UAG, UAA, or UGA, produced only dipeptides and tripeptides thus revealing that UAG, UAA and UGA are stop codons.

With this, Khorana and his team had established that the mother of all codes, the biological language common to all living organisms, is spelled out in three-letter words: each set of three nucleotides codes for a specific amino acid. Their Nobel lecture was delivered on December 12, 1968. Khorana was also the first to synthesize oligonucleotides, that is, strings of nucleotides (see oligonucleotide synthesis). He was the first to isolate DNA ligase, an enzyme that links pieces of DNA together. These custom-designed pieces of artificial genes are widely used in biology labs for sequencing, cloning and engineering new plants and animals. This invention of Khorana has become automated and commercialized so that anyone now can order a synthetic gene from any of a number of companies—one merely needs to fax the genetic sequence to one of the companies to receive an oligonucliotide with the desired sequence.

External links

• Nobel biography
• Homepage - MIT, where he works presently.
• The Official Site of Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize