A pioneer in biotechnology
Har Gobind Khorana is credited with making the first synthetic genes by cutting and pasting DNA bits
Jacob Koshy
Who was Har Gobind
Khorana?
Nobel Laureate Har Gobind
Khorana’s contributions
to biology are of contemporary
relevance for
some of the most exciting
areas such as synthetic
biology and gene editing.
A Google Doodle on Tuesday
to mark the 96th birth
anniversary of the Indianorigin
American scientist
this week stoked much interest
in his work.
What were his
contributions to biology?
After James Watson and
Francis Crick found that
DNA (Deoxy ribonucleic
acid) had a doublehelix
structure, Khorana was
among those who signi
cantly built on that knowledge
and explained how
this sequence of nucleic
acids (better known as the
genetic code) goes about
making proteins, which is
critical to the functioning
of cells. The Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine for
1968 was awarded jointly
to Robert W. Holley, Har
Gobind Khorana and Marshall
W. Nirenberg “for
their interpretation of the
genetic code and its function
in protein synthesis.”
Khorana was able to create
nucleic acids in the lab
and did so by guring out
the order in which nucleotides
needed to be to make
a suite of amino acids,
which are the basic units
of proteins.
Khorana is credited with
making the rst synthetic
genes by cutting and pasting
dierent bits of DNA
together. This is considered
a forerunner to the
method called Polymerase
Chain Reaction that is
among the methods used
to commercially read the
unique genetic structures
of organisms today. He
further placed the labmade
gene in a living bacterium
and was, in that
sense, a founding father of
biotechnology. The
CRISPR/Cas9 system,
which is the glitziest new
toy in genetics and is used
alter the functioning of
certain genes, references
the work of Khorana as a
key inuence.
What was his connection
with India?
Khorana was born in 1922
in Raipur, a village in Punjab
now part of Pakistan.
He was the youngest of six
siblings and his father was
a ‘patwari’, a village agricultural
taxation clerk in
the British Indian system
of government. He lived in
India until 1945, when the
award of a Government of
India Fellowship made it
possible for him to go to
England for a PhD at the
University of Liverpool.
Khorana became a naturalised
U.S. citizen in 1966
source; the hindu news paper
source; the hindu news paper
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