Har Gobind Khurana

 

Har Govind Khurana 1922 to 2022

 

its hundred years this year since Har Gobind Khurana a Nobel prize winner of Medicine and an Indian American scientist was born and its our duty to remember this great man of science

Indian peninsula had produced several scientists amongst others over the years though their recognition may have come from foreign shores, one of the notables amongst them has been Har Gobind Khurana.

He was born in 1922 in Raipur part of British India which would become part of Pakistan after Independence, He is known now as an Indian American who got American citizenship in 1966.he is a Punjabi Hindu, youngest of five children, his father educating them all though just a clerk in British India.

Har Gobind had his early classes under a tree later in school, got scholarship for under and postgraduation In Lahore university in Chemistry by 1945.

He then got a fellowship scholarship to get his PhD from Cambridge, for study on chemistry of Melanin’s with Roger beer later post-doctoral study in Switzerland where he also worked, later he moved to Canada and from there to US, university of Wisconsin, Madison where he was a Biochemistry professor and had started research on nucleotides and RNA codes for protein synthesis.

He married a Swiss national Esther and had three children

Before going to Canada, he had tried to settle down in Punjab but he did not find suitable placement and support for research

He shared the Nobel prize in physiology in Medicine in 1968 with Robert Holley and Marshal Nirenberg synthesizing oligonucleotides as building blocks of amino acids, precursor of polymerase chain reaction and discovering set of three nucleotides called codons as basic building blocks

Though it was known our cells made genes which made proteins the process was unknown

In short, he discovered the essential function of our gene and for construction the first synthetic gene, he deciphered our DNA and wrote the dictionary for our genetic language in fact he not only made a synthetic DNA but put it in a live bacterium an early start to promising biotechnology

He built RNA chains later used to produce protein molecules

He would often say if you want to travel far you need to travel alone

He was helpful to his compatriots inspiring to his students and polite to society.

He loved long hikes, music and swimming

He knew of the announcement of his Nobel prize the last as he had gone for one of his lonely walks along lake Madison where he camped in a tent with no telephone or radio but pen and paper to write on his work and his wife had to reach him by driving to him after hearing the news

He was given the Padma Vibhusan in 1969 by the Indian Government

Strangely the Pakistan Government never claimed him or gave him any honors ignoring him as a Hindu Indian

Joined MIT in 1970 and was there till he retired in 2007

In 2007 University of Wisconsin, Government of India under Department of Technology and Indo US science and technology forum would form the Korona program to create scientists, industrialists and social entrepreneurs in USA and India.

He would get foreign member of Royal society in 1978

He would work on Rhodopsin the protein in our retinas post Nobel prize

He passed away in 2011 at 89 years