Science News Desk!! Hargobind Khorana (English: Hargobind Khorana, born: January 9, 1922; died: November 9, 2011) was an Indian-born American biochemist. He received the Marshall W. Award in the field of physiology or medicine in 1968. Nirenberg and Robert W. Hawley was awarded the Nobel Prize for that research. This research helped discover how nucleotides, the nucleic acids that carry the cell’s genetic code, control the cell’s protein synthesis.
Birth and education
Khurana was born on 9 January 1922 in Raipur, British India. He was born in a poor family. He attended Punjab University in Lahore and Liverpool University, England on a government scholarship.
Research
He began research on nucleic acids during his scholarship at Cambridge University (1951) under Sir Alexander Todd. He held fellow and professorships at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland and at the University of British Columbia, Canada (1952–1959) and Wisconsin, USA. In 1971 he joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Contribution
In the 1960s, Khorana confirmed Neerberg’s discovery that DNA The way the four different types of nucleotides are arranged on the curved ‘steps’ of the molecule determines the chemical structure and function of the new cell. D.N.A. There are 64 possible combinations of nucleotides that are read out on a single strand to produce the desired amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. Khorana gave further information about which sequential combination of nucleotides forms which particular amino acid.
He also confirmed that nucleotides are always transmitted to the coding cell in groups of three, called codons. They also discovered that certain proteins cause the cell to start or stop making proteins.
Khorana made another contribution to genetics in 1970, when he and his research team succeeded in synthesizing the first artificial copy of a yeast gene. Dr Khurana was last employed as the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the University of Liverpool.
demise
Hargobind Khorana died on 9 November 2011.