NEW DELHI: Google on Tuesday celebrated the 96th birth anniversary of Indian-American Nobel prize-winning biochemist Har Gobind Khorana with a doodle.
The researcher shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for research that showed how the order of nucleotides in nucleic acids, which carry the genetic code of the cell, control the cell's synthesis of proteins.
Dr. Khorana was born in 1922 as the youngest of five children. His father instilled the importance of learning by helping his children to read and write, which wasn’t common for villagers at the time.
Scholarships helped propel the budding scientist through his scholastic journey, obtaining his doctorate in organic chemistry in 1948.
He also conducted research at universities in England, Switzerland, and Canada, and it was at the University of Wisconsin that he and two fellow researchers received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968.
Dr. Khorana is also renowned for constructing the first synthetic gene and received a multitude of awards during his lifetime, including the National Medal of Science.
Alumni of University of Liverpool, University of Cambridge and University of Punjab, he dedicated his life to education, science and research.