Jyoti vakhlu
As per the will of Alfred Nobel’s, the interest of the money that he earned from his discovery of dynamite should be split in 5 and given to a “person” who has made the most important contribution to physics, chemistry , physiology & Medicine, literature and economics. This year in science, the Nobel was given to Jeffrey C Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W Young
in physiology & medicine; to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson in Chemistry ; to Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne in Physics.
In physiology & medicine the award was given ” for discovering the molecular mechanism controlling the circadian rhythm”. In simpler words, the genetic and molecular mechanism of working of endogenous biological clock, that works in sync with the rotation of earth i.e. sunrise and sunset. Circa is a Latin for ” about/around” and “dies/ diem” the Latin for “day. Therefore circadian rhythm matches the body physiology to the alternation of day and night and controls our biological functions, including, the sleep patterns. The model organism used to study the molecular mechanism was fruit fly. The first step towards this giant discovery was made in 1984, when the single unit, the ‘period gene ‘ was cloned from fruit fly . The discovery of “period gene” in fly by extension, suggests its presence in all the living beings. Further Dr . Hall and Dr. Rosbash measured the concentration of the gene product in the fruit fly, over the course of 24 hours in reference to day and night. They found that, the product of period gene peaks during night and goes down during the day; as a result controls biological functions in reference to day and night. Many more genes involved in circadian rhythm have been cloned since. Some of these cloned genes serve as a link between the information received from eyes to biological clock, so that the clock stays in synchrony with the sun.
India is one of the leading countries in research related to fly biology and many Indian researchers have contributed towards it , to understand biological systems at large. Two of this years laureates , Hall and Rosbach have close interaction with Indian scientists studying neurogenetics, particularly at NCBS, Bangalore. The scientific query regarding ‘neurogenetics was raised by Seymour Benger , a molecular biologist at caltech USA, and an Indian postdoc Dr. Obaid Siddiqui was in Benger’s team.. Dr. Siddiqui was instrumental in establishing TIFR-NCBS in Bangaluru , that is one of the leading institutes involved in fly biology research.
The chemistry Nobel has been given,” for developing cryo electron microscopy for high resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution”. A technique that helps to visualize biological molecules, such as proteins easily and at high resolution in comparison to X-ray crystallography or conventional electron microscopy. The image of the biological molecule leads to it’s structure. To understand the mechanism of function of a molecule , understanding its structure is the most basic requirement. For example, if the structure of the biological molecule, involved in the manifestation of some disease is known, instead of trying various drugs to inhibit it, the drug that fits best can be designed and evaluated for its efficacy. X- crystallography previously has unraveled structure of lot of biological molecules , such as DNA and many proteins, but it has two limitations i) The molecule to be studied by X-ray diffraction chromatography is to be crystallized first , and not all biological molecules are easy to crystallize ii) the water molecule usually crystallizes along with the molecule and disrupts it’s structure. Cryo -electron microscopy ( cryo-EM) does not require crystallization . Dr Dobochet invented a way to freeze samples that is crucial for this technique. The technique involves, dripping of any biological molecule suspended in water on the metal mesh . The mesh is then plunged into liquid ethane at temperature around -1800C. The speed should be fast enough so that water does not turn into ice crystals destroying the molecule’s structure. Dr Handerson was facing problem of crystallization of a protein Bacteriorhodopsin , in whose structure and function he was interested in . Since crystallography failed in his case, he decide to try Dobochet’s method. After 15 years of effort in 1990 , Handerson was the first to produce the picture of Bacteriorhodopsin. Like electron microscope cryEM also produces flat snap shot of biological molecules , the third collaborator Dr Frank developed the mathematical method to develop the 3-D structure from the flat snapshots of the structure taken by EM.
India has recently established its first but most advanced cryoEM facility for life sciences at the Institute for stem cell Biology and regenerative medicine ( in Stem) in Bangalore. The two laureates that pushed for establishment of this facility in India are Handerson ( the co-inventor) and V. Ramakrishnan, an Indian origin scientist , who won Nobel prize in chemistry in 2009, for discovering molecular structure of ribosome.
The nobel prize for physics this years has been shared by Rainer Weiss, Barry barish and Kip Thorne “for decisive contributors to LIGO detectors and observation of gravitational waves” as proposed by Einstein in his famous theory of relativity in the beginning of last century. Einstein proposed that the gravity is result of mass distorting the space and time around itself. This distortion modifies the path of objects moving near by . Therefore the moving mass should create ripples that radiate into the universe. These gravitational waves were detected at laser interferometer gravitational wave observatory , LIGO in USA. The first gravitational ripples were detected in 2015 and these were produced as a result of colliding of two black holes 1.3bn light years from earth.
Around 37 Indian scientist from 9 different institutes have contributed to work done at LIGO. The contribution by Indian scientist were made by working in the international LIGO science collaborations. To name some contributions made by Indian scientist; obtaining estimates of the mass of the final black hole, astrophysical interpretations and exquisite tests of Einstein’s gravitation in so called strong field etc..
Contribution of Indian scientist in contemporary science knowledge is matter of pride for all the Indians.
( The author is Professor and Director School of Biotechnology University of Jammu)
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