Nita Patel Leads Development of Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine
Global efforts to combat COVID-19 were strengthened by a vaccine developed under the leadership of Nita Patel. In 2022, U.S. regulators authorized the Novavax vaccine, which used a protein-based platform rather than mRNA technology. The achievement demonstrated that established vaccine approaches could be rapidly adapted to emerging pathogens, broadening the world’s pandemic-response toolkit and expanding […]
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan Maps the Atomic Structure of the Ribosome
Many of today’s antibiotics were developed using insights made possible by Venkatraman Ramakrishnan’s work. In 2009, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for determining the atomic structure of the ribosome, the cellular machinery that translates genetic information into proteins. His discoveries revealed how antibiotics interact with bacterial ribosomes and provided researchers with a powerful […]
Baliga Invents the IGBT and Transforms Global Energy Efficiency
Every electric vehicle, renewable energy system, MRI machine, and high-speed rail network depends on efficient power-control technologies pioneered by B. Jayant Baliga. While working at General Electric, he invented the Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT), a breakthrough that dramatically improved the efficiency of power electronics. The technology became a global standard, reducing energy consumption across […]
Indian American Astronauts Who Reached Space
Indian American astronauts have helped expand humanity’s reach beyond Earth for nearly three decades. Beginning with Kalpana Chawla’s historic flight in 1997, followed by Sunita Williams’ record-setting missions, Sirisha Bandla’s commercial spaceflight, and Raja Chari’s command of a SpaceX mission, these achievements placed members of the Indian diaspora at the forefront of both government and […]