Venkatraman Ramakrishnan is a structural biologist whose career transformed molecular biology and medicine. Working at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, he applied X-ray crystallography to map the atomic architecture of one of the cell’s most fundamental structures. His findings illuminated the molecular mechanisms by which genetic instructions are decoded into functional proteins, opening new avenues for antibiotic development. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009 and later served as President of the Royal Society.
