Gopalasamudram Narayana Iyer Ramachandran, was an Indian physicist who was known for his work that led to his creation of the Ramachandran plot for understanding peptide structure. He was the first to propose a triple-helical model for the structure of collagen. He also made other major contributions in biology and physics.
He founded the Centre of Advanced Study in Biophysics.
Background
Ramachandran was born in the town of Ernakulam, Kerala, India in a Tamil iyer Family. Gopalasamudram, the native place of his family, is a village in the old Tirunelveli District of Madras Presidency.
Ramachandran was devastated by the death of his wife Rajalakshmi in 1998, and a gradual deterioration in health occurred. During the last few years of his life he suffered a stroke and was affected by Parkinson's disease. Ramachandran died in 2001 at age 78, and left behind him a legacy of scientific discoveries.Leading scientists including Professor Linus Pauling and Professor Francis Crick regarded Professor Ramchandran as a Nobel Prize caliber scientist of great reputation.
Education
He joined the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1942 in the Electrical Engineering Department. Quickly realizing his interest in physics, he switched to the Department of Physics to complete his master's and doctoral thesis under the supervision of Nobel laureate Sir C. V. Raman.In 1942, he received a master's degree in physics from Madras University with his thesis submmited from Bangalore (he did not attend any Madras college at that time). He subsequently received his D.Sc. degree in 1947. Here he mostly studied crystal physics and crystal optics. During his studies he created an X-ray focusing mirror for the X-ray microscope. The resulting field of crystal topography is used extensively in studies involving crystal growth and solid-state reactivity.
Ramachandran then spent two years at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, where he earned his Ph.D. for 'studies on X-ray diffuse scattering and its application to determination of elastic constants' under the direction of Professor William Alfred Wooster, popularly known as W.A. Wooster, a leading crystallography expert in the world.
Career
After completing his Ph.D, he returned to the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India in 1949 as an assistant professor of physics. In 1952, he moved to Madras University as professor and head of the Department of Physics where he continued his work on crystal physics.
In 1970, he founded the Molecular Biophysics Unit at the Indian Institute of Science which was later known as the Centre of Advanced Study in Biophysics. In 1971, he moved to Bangalore owing to the deterioration in standards of the University of Madras after the long-term of Sir Arcot Lakshmanaswamy Mudaliar as the vice-chancellor. The general complaint was that the successor N.D. Sundaravadvelu could not sustain the academic standards of Sir A.L. Mudaliar.
Proposed and published the triple helical structure of collagen in 1954.
The result of examining the various polypeptide conformationsnow known as Ramachandran plot - was published in the Journal of Molecular Biology in 1963 and has become an essential tool in the field of protein conformation.
Ramachandran can be credited for bringing together into the one field of molecular biophysics the then disparate fields of X-ray crystallography, peptide synthesis, Nuclear magnetic resonance and other optical studies, and physico-chemical experimentation.
Ramachandran and A.V. Lakshminarayana developed convolution-backprojection algorithms which greatly improved the quality and practicality of results obtainable by x-ray tomography. As a result, commercial manufacturers of x-ray tomographic scanners started building systems capable of reconstructing high resolution images that were almost photographically perfect.
Works
publication
Journal of Molecular Biology
research
Three dimensional reconstructions from radiographs and electron micrographs: Application of convolution instead of Fourier Transforms
Membership
Council 1953-1970, Secretary 195658. Physical Research Committee 1959-1969. National Committee Biophysics 1961-1975.
Board of Scientific and Industrial Research, India 1962-1965, Council Institute Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics 1969-1972, Commission, on Macromolecular Biophysics 1969. American Society of Biological Chemistry since 1965. American Academy, of Arts and Sciences since 1970.
Editorial Board J. Molecular Biology 66, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1965-1972, Indian Journal of Pure and Applied Physics 1963-1980, Institute Journal of Peptide and Protein Research 82, Indian Journal of Biochemistry and Biophysics 1970-1978, Biopolymers 1973-1986, Connective Tissue Research 1973-1984.
Interests
Indian and Western music, detective fiction, Eastern and Western philosophy.
Connections
Married Rajalakshmi Sankaran in 1945.
Father:
G. R. Narayana Iyer
Spouse:
Rajalakshmi Sankaran
Wife:
Rajalakshmi
mentor:
William Alfred Wooster
Professor William Alfred Wooster, popularly known as W.A. Wooster, a leading crystallography expert in the world, under his direction Ramachandran earned his Ph.D. for 'studies on X-ray diffuse scattering and its application to determination of elastic constants' .
colleague:
Gopinath Kartha
Ramachandran along with Gopinath Kartha proposed and published the triple helical structure of collagen.
