H.G.Khorana was awarded the Nobel prize fora)Discovering DNAb)chemical...
M. Nirenberg, Khorana and Holley were awarded Nobel Prize for in vitro synthesis of polypeptides using artificially synthesized mRNA. Marshall Nirenberg and Heinrich Matthaei incubated synthetic polyuridylate, poly(U), GTP, ATP, E. coli extract and a mixture of the 20 amino acids in 20 different tubes containing a different radioactively labelled amino acid. The poly(U) mRNA has many successive UUU triplets and thus the resultant polypeptide should contain only the amino acid encoded by the triplet UUU. One out of 20 tubes synthesized a radioactive polypeptide that contained radioactive phenylalanine. It was concluded that the triplet codon UUU encodes phenylalanine. Khorana used the same approach to reveal that polycytidylate, encodes a polypeptide containing only proline and polyadenylate encodes polylysine.
H.G.Khorana was awarded the Nobel prize fora)Discovering DNAb)chemical...
Har Gobind Khorana, commonly known as HG Khorana, was an Indian-American biochemist. He was born in 1922 in Raipur, British India (now Pakistan) and later moved to the United States. Khorana made significant contributions to the field of genetics and molecular biology, particularly in the study of DNA.
One of Khorana's most notable achievements was his work on deciphering the genetic code. In the early 1960s, scientists were still trying to understand how the order of nucleotides in DNA determines the order of amino acids in proteins. Khorana and his team conducted pioneering experiments to decipher the genetic code and determine which codons (sequences of three nucleotides) correspond to specific amino acids.
In addition to deciphering the genetic code, Khorana also made significant advancements in the chemical synthesis of DNA. Prior to his work, scientists could only extract DNA from living organisms or use enzymatic methods to produce short DNA fragments. Khorana wanted to synthesize long DNA strands chemically to study their properties and better understand DNA's role in genetic information storage and transfer.
Khorana developed a method for synthesizing DNA in the laboratory using chemically modified nucleotides. He devised a step-by-step approach that allowed him to build DNA strands by adding one nucleotide at a time. This breakthrough in DNA synthesis enabled scientists to create custom DNA sequences for research purposes and paved the way for advancements in genetic engineering and biotechnology.
For his groundbreaking work on the chemical synthesis of DNA and deciphering the genetic code, HG Khorana was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968. He shared this prestigious honor with Marshall Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley.
HG Khorana's contributions to the field of genetics and molecular biology, specifically in the chemical synthesis of DNA, have had a profound impact on scientific research. His pioneering work not only expanded our understanding of the genetic code but also revolutionized the ability to synthesize DNA in the laboratory. Khorana's achievements continue to shape modern molecular biology and have paved the way for numerous advancements in the field.