H. Gobind Khorana, 1968 Nobel Winner for RNA Research, Dies

I am an Indian, and it is usually a matter of pride for us that people of Indian origin have scaled heights in academia and elsewhere. Which is why it surprises me that the largest Indian English dailies that I subscribe to, haven't really said much about the passing of a great scientist. They seem more busy in talking about perfectly useless reality shows.

One of those giants people are always standing on the shoulders of.<p>And he stood on his share. Watson and Crick. That teacher under the tree in his village. His father.

It surprises me how few Indians know about Khorana. He is the only Indian (person of Indian origin) to be awarded the prize for Physiology or Medicine.

Khorana and his team had established that the mother of all codes, the biological language common to all living organisms, is spelled out in three-letter words: each set of three nucleotides codes for a specific amino acid.<p>Khorana was the first scientist to synthesize oligonucleotides.<p>He extended the above to long DNA Polymers using non-aqueous chemistry and assembled these into the first synthetic gene, using polymerase and ligase enzymes that link pieces of DNA together. as well as methods that anticipated the invention of PCR.<p>These custom-designed pieces of artificial genes are widely used in biology labs for sequencing, cloning and engineering new plants and animals.<p>Khorana's invention has become automated and commercialized so that anyone now can order a synthetic gene from any of a number of companies. One merely needs to send the genetic sequence to one of the companies to receive an oligonucleotide with the desired sequence.