Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

Ramanath Cowsik

Two scientists of Indian origin are among eminent scientists who have been inducted into the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) at its 141st annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on April 20.

Professor Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, group leader, Structural Studies Division Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Medical Research Council, Cambridge, Britain, is among the 72 new members elected to the NAS, while Ramanath Cowsik, director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bangalore and Distinguished Professor at the Tata Institute For Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, is among the 18 foreign associates elected to the academy.

Election to the membership of the academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer. Those elected bring the total number of active members to 1,949.

Ramakrishnan is internationally recognized for determining of the atomic structure of the 30S ribosomal subunit. Earlier, he mapped the arrangement of proteins in the 30S subunit by neutron diffraction and solved X-ray structures of individual components and their RNA complexes.

Fundamental insights came from his crystallographic studies of the complete 30S subunit. The atomic model included over 1,500 bases of RNA and 20 associated proteins.

He has also made substantial contributions to understanding how chromatin is organized, particularly the structure of linker histone and their role in higher order folding.

Ramakrishnan earned his B.Sc. in physics from Baroda University in 1971 and his Ph.D. in physics from Ohio University in 1976. Before moving to the MRC in 1999, he was a professor of biochemistry at the University of Utah.

He has conducted research at Yale University, Brookhaven National Laboratory and at the University of California (Berkeley and San Diego). After graduate school, he designed his own 2-year transition from physics to biology.

Ramanath Cowsik’s scientific contributions span over several decades and are in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology and non-accelerator particle physics; these are recorded in his 175 research papers.

He established the highest observatory in the world in Hanle, Ladakh, in the Himalayas, at an altitude of 15,000 feet, for astronomy in the optical and infrared wavelength bands.

After earning his B.Sc from Mysore University in 1958 and his M.Sc from Karnatak University in 1960, Cowsik went on to take his Ph.D. in 1968 from TIFR.

A visiting professor at the University of Washington in St Louis, Cowsik is a fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy, the National Academy of Sciences and the Third World Academy of Sciences (Trieste).

He is also the recipient of the Bhatnagar Award for Physics and the Vikram Sarabhai Award for the Space Sciences.

The NAS is a private organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare. It was established in 1863 by a congressional act of incorporation, signed by Abraham Lincoln, which calls on the academy to act as an official adviser to the federal government, upon request, in any matter of science or technology.

(Compiled from news dispatches by Varun Lamba)