Nobel Laureate Lecture: Dr. Venkatraman "Venki" Ramakrishnan

The road to the structure of the ribosome: A personal account
"The ribosome is the large macromolecular machine that translates the genetic code into protein in all life forms. Since its discovery in the 1950s, it has been the subject of intensive study in many labs world wide. In the last decade, the structures of the atomic subunits and subsequently of the whole ribosome trapped in different stages of translation have revolutionized our understanding of the process. In this talk I will discuss some early approaches to the structure of the ribosome, the difficulties we encountered in our crystallography of the 30S subunit and finally discuss how the ribosome facilitates the accurate decoding of the genetic message."

Presented by UCSD Division of Biological Sciences in conjunction with the Clifford Grobstein Memorial Lecture Series.