G N Ramachandran was born on 8 October 1922 in Ernakulam, Kerala.
His father G. Narayana Iyer was the principal of Maharaja’s college in Ernakulam.
G N Ramachandran did his intermediate from Maharaja’s college and his B.Sc. (Hons) in Physics from St. Joseph’s College, Tiruchi.
G N Ramachandran
In 1942 he joined the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore as a student in the Electrical Engineering department.
However, C.V.Raman inspired him to study Physics. He obtained his M.Sc. and then his Ph.D. in 1947, under Raman’s supervision.
He then went to the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge and obtained his second Ph.D degree under Prof. Wooster.
Professional Life and Scientific Achievement
G N Ramachandran returned to India in 1949 and joined IISc as an Assistant Professor.
In 1952, the management of University of Madras appointed him as Head of the Physics Department at the at the age of 30.
In 1952, G N Ramachandran started working on collagen (the protein that is found in skin, bone and tendon) on the suggestion of J.D. Bernal.
In 1954, he proposed, along with Gopinath Kartha, the triple-helix structure for collagen but later revised in the light of new data to the coiled coil structure for biomolecules.
He and his colleagues C. Ramakrishnan and V. Sasisekharan went on to develop methods to examine and assess structures of biomolecules, in particular peptides.
In 1963, this resulted in the famous Ramachandran map, which is an indispensable tool in the study of molecular structures today.
His contributions in the field of X-ray crystallography such as anomalous dispersion, new kinds of Fourier syntheses, and X-ray intensity statistics are also extremely important.
His 1971 paper with A.V. Lakshminarayanan on three-dimensional image reconstruction was to have important applications in Computer Assisted Tomography.
In 1971, G N Ramachandran returned to Bangalore to set up the Molecular Biophysics Unit at the IISc which is today a major research centre.
Later Life
Royal Society elected him Fellow of the Royal Society in 1977. Later Indian government awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award.
In 1999, The International Union of Crystallography awarded him the prestigious Ewald Prize, which is given only once in three years.
G N Ramachandran was the editor of Current Science between 1950 and 1957.
the death of his wife Rajalakshmi in 1998 devastated Ramachandran , and a gradual deterioration in health occurred.
He suffered a stroke and was affected by Parkinson’s disease during last few years of his wife.
Ramachandran died in 2001 at age 78, and left behind him a legacy of scientific discoveries.
