Khorana, Har Gobind, << koh RAHN uh, har GOH bihnd >> (1922-2011), an Indian-born American biochemist, contributed to the interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis. He investigated the part of the nucleic acids (transmitters of genetic material in animals) that produce proteins. Because it is impossible to match up proteins with the nucleic acids that form them in a living cell, Khorana artificially synthesized small nucleic acids, similar to those in a living cell. He then observed which proteins the synthesized nucleic acids formed. In 1968, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, sharing the prize with American biochemists Robert Holley and Marshall W. Nirenberg (see Holley, Robert William ; Nirenberg, Marshall Warren ).
Gobind Khorana was born at Raipur, India, probably on Jan. 9, 1922. He studied at the Punjab University in Lahore, Pakistan and at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom. From 1950 to 1952, Khorana was a research fellow at Cambridge. He then moved to Vancouver, Canada to work for the British Columbia Research Council. In 1960, he began work at the Institute for Enzyme Research at the University of Wisconsin, becoming a naturalized United States citizen. In 1970, Khorana became professor of biology and chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He became a professor emeritus there in 1997. Khorana died on Nov. 9, 2011.
