Ribosome under synchrotron light (Nobel Laureate Venki Ramakrishnan) (2019)

In this interview Venki Ramakrishnan reviews part of his work on the structural resolution of the ribosome, for which he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009. He discusses the role that synchrotron facilities have played in unravelling the structure of the ribosome and how cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has become an essential tool for structural biologists. He concludes with an overview on his current research activities at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.
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This production was sponsored by Khalaf Al Habtoor, chairman of Al Habtoor Group.
We also thank the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and the Royal Society for arranging the interview with Venki Ramakrishnan.
Venki's book is available here: amzn.to/2wB8eVY
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Quotes:
The reality is that genes are units of information. Each gene contains information for how to make a particular protein or how to regulate the making of a protein (to make more of it or less of it and so on).[2][3] These instructions are encoded in our genetic material, which is a long molecule called DNA.[4][5][6] In the DNA molecule there are hundreds of genes, which are represented as different sections within the DNA itself. Each section that contains a gene, contains information on how to make a particular protein or how to regulate it.
This can be regarded as a large library of information representing our genetic material. Now, if you were to go to the British Library and say “I want to borrow that book”, they will not let you because that book is usually too valuable, it is original. Instead they will make a copy of the book, which you can read, learn from it, or to carry out instructions from it, and so on.
The cell does something very similar. Although the genetic information is stored in DNA, each gene is copied into a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA)[7][8][9][10] because it carries the genetic message. The mRNA goes from the nucleus to the cytoplasm of the cell. There, a large molecular machine - the ribosome - reads this genetic message and then, based on the instructions, stitches together a protein.[2][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] A protein is a long polymer like DNA, but unlike DNA it is only single-stranded instead of double-stranded. Whereas DNA consists of four types of bases, a protein consists of 20 types of amino acids. So it is a completely different sort of polymer. This process is called translation because you are going from the language of DNA, which is like a sentence with only four letters in the alphabet, to a different kind of polymer, which has 20 letters in its alphabet. What the ribosome does is right at the crossroads of biology, it is the bridge between genes and the information they contain to making the products that are specified by the gene.
Now, you asked what my contribution was. Ribosomes were discovered in the 1950s,[18] but they are enormously complex molecules. It is almost not correctly to regard as a molecule because it is an assembly of 80 or so molecules and it is about half a million atoms. So it is incredibly complicated. To understand how it works, just as with any other molecule, you want to know what it looks like, how it interacts with the genetic message, how it stitches together amino acids to make a protein, how it moves, etc. To do that you need to understand its structure, you need to be able to visualize what the ribosome actually looks like, and not just in one state, but what does it look like as it is carrying out its function. That was a long complicated effort, which required several groups to determine its high resolution structure. From there it was then possible to understand some of the key functional mechanisms, such as how it reads the genetic code accurately and how it makes the peptide bond, which is the bond between amino acids.[19] Because of that the Nobel Prize in 2009 was awarded to three groups.[1][20] More than three groups actually contributed to the effort, but in terms of the high resolution structure, I think these were the three groups that actually made the breakthroughs.
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[@palebluedot1217]

He is Legend. He has completely spend two decades in his life in solving the atomic structure of the ribosome. Such a legendary person.

[@BULLAKI]

I totally agree

[@idrisali8608]

How does this channel not have more views