The Royal Institution
Nobel Laureate Venki Ramakrishnan shares the story behind uncovering the complex structure of the ribosome and his role in the process, in conversation with Vivianne Parry.
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Nobel Prize winner Venki Ramakrishnan tells the story of the race to uncover the structure of the ribosome, a fundamental discovery that resolves an ancient mystery of life itself and could lead to the development of better antibiotics to fight the most deadly diseases. He will chart his unlikely journey from his first fumbling experiments in a biology lab to being at the centre of a fierce competition at the cutting edge of modern science.
Watch the Q&A: https://youtu.be/aH-f3iPleY4
Venkatraman ‘Venki’ Ramakrishnan is a Nobel Prize-winning biologist whose many scientific contributions include his work on the atomic structure of the ribosome.
Venki received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on ribosomal structure and was knighted in 2012. He is a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina and EMBO, and a Foreign Member of the Indian National Science Academy. In 2015, he was elected as President of the Royal Society of London for a five-year term.
This talk was filmed at the Ri on 18 October 2018.
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Just amazing
Even Charles Darwin made the self-deprecating remark; I was amongst the distinguished class of people who achieved second class honours, at Cambridge. He was clearly, one of the most accomplished scholars of all time who was not limited by his seeming initial prospects.
Came here to Decipher the Ribosome, got a poor interview and meandering autobiography instead.
Fascinating science, unfortunately not very much of it in this talk. I had to skip through at least half. Wish he'd have just given a lecture.
All the moaners and whiners saying "Too much intro", "I wanted more ribosomes"… If you're somebody who's actually working towards a career in science, you're constantly told that in order to succeed you need to be at the top of everything – you need to go to the best school, get the most papers, you can't change your direction of studies, you need to have the best test score, you need to be some kind of child prodigy, get the most funding etc… It goes without saying that all of these things definitely help, but also that you can be successful without any of them. It's refreshing to see a noble laureate talking about all the meandering aspects of his career, and also see how he was successful in spite of his "weaknesses". The business he says about your peer group in grad school is also 100% true – there are great professors everywhere, but for motivated and stimulating peers you need to reach for the more competitive schools.
That said, his origins aren't nearly as humble as they are made out to be. Dude got a super prestigious scholarship at 19, and then already had a PhD at 23, which was pretty fast even by 1970's standards (which were much faster than now). Also, UC Sandiego is a very prestigious grad school for biology. Still he did make an impressive turn around, and all while starting a family.
Most of the time he is talking about himself how wonderful he is.
Can read the book in Google books.
Did she say “circling the plug hole is how the american’s put it” um now we don’t and I’ve never heard that phrase before.
20:51 "Circling the plughole is what the Americans call it"
…no…
Those guys growing the blue crystal had better watch their six for Heisenberg.
I got so excited after seeing the title.
… … …
What a disappointment. Why not prepare a full lecture, stand up, and talk.
It would have been better if she was not on the stage as MC…..! I kept flashing back to scene's from Snowpiercer !!!!
Very interesting talk.
Probably wearing cheetah was not the best wardrobe choice… we’ve read his book before shooting an interview with him last week at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge (we just published the first part). We found particularly interesting how “politics” played a role in his journey. Worth reading it. I’ve read of people complaining that there isn’t much science in this video… just Google Scholar his name… plenty of articles in Nature, Science, Cell to further explore his contribution.
Excellent talk regarding the history of the discovery of the ribosome and the scientist who did it. As a biologist, I am already well versed in the structure of the ribosome so this history talk was pretty interesting. If anyone here has read the "Double Helix" by watson and crick, it follows the same type of theme…a story of the history of the discovery of the structure…the ultimate structure determined while drinking beer in the Eagle Pub. I have been to the Eagle Pub on a vacation to England!
But I can understand those on here who expected a more biological/structural/function talk. But there are plenty of videos on that subject.
Hmmm. She's got the paperback version of the book, but that's not available until October.
This is boring.
I don't want to hear about personal lives…
Since the Ribosome structure was "uncovered", has it helped anyone to explain how it works? For example, has it shed light on how it counts to 3? A Martian coming down to see what automobiles look like and move still doesn't know how they operate. The word "decipher" means more than seeing what something looks like. If you see a cuneiform document clearly, you still don't understand it until it's deciphered into a known language.
Congratulations in getting a clear picture of these machines.
What's known about how a Ribosome is generated?
Articles say each of the main two subunits has RNA strings and multiple proteins.
What's the genome? Are they all expressed at one time?
What are the individual rRNA strings called? What are the bases?
How do the strings connect to proteins?
A Ribosome has a third subunit called tRNA.
We know how mRNA is made. How are tRNA subunits made? What are the bases?
Do the bases have patterns as we see in genes (translatable)?
How does a string of tRNA transport amino acid molecules?
What is the energy source?
A lot more "deciphering" is needed.
just bought the book (epub)
23:01 there´s no lens for xrays? maybe not a classical lens exactly like in a normal camera but there a hundreds of xray lenses sucensfully in use right now. in telescopes and satellites in all sizes. how does he think xray astronomy works if there were no xray lenses? it´s quite interesting actually how they work and i´m pretty sure theres a talk about it right here on this channel.
Impetus to basic science needed here in india
MACHINES = INTELIGENT DESIGN… nothing random
Super . .
How do they stack ribosomes to form a crystal? how do they ensure no other items are there in that crystal? How big can be this crystal?
This is just about the best talk I've seen from the RI. Venki Ramakrishnan has the gift of being able to explain complex concepts and ideas in Simple English … a rare and priceless gift. Not only that he can do it with humour and laugh at himself. A thoroughly enjoyable hour well worth watching … and I learned a whole bunch about the Ribosome.👍👍👍😎
Advice from Dr Venky : Do not use too many anti-biotics. And he takes atorvastatin.