Har Gobind Khoran, Indian-Born American Biochemist
Har Gobind Khorana (1922-2011) was a British Indian-born American biochemist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968 with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for research that helped to show how the nucleotides in nucleic acids, which carry the genetic code of the cell, control the cell's synthesis of proteins. Khorana and his team had established that 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. Subsequently he assembled these into the first synthetic gene, using polymerase and ligase enzymes that link pieces of DNA together. These custom-designed pieces of artificial genes are widely used in biology labs for sequencing, cloning and engineering new plants and animals. This invention of Khorana has become automated and commercialized so that anyone now can order a synthetic gene from any of a number of companies. He lived to be 89 and died of natural causes.
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