Gene Machine and the Culture of Science

Venki Ramakrishnan in conversation with Priyamvada Natrajan. Nobel laureate Venki Ramakrishnan is a British-American structural biologist of Indian origin. He is also currently President of the Royal Society. His recent book, Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome is about the quest to understand the enormous ancient molecular machine, the ribosome, that decodes genetic information to build all life forms. But the book also is a frank description of what it was like for an outsider who found himself in a race to solve one of the most fundamental problems of biology. He will speak not only about the scientific voyage itself but also about the human side of science, including blunders, dead ends, changing careers, egos, competition and collaboration. The result is an insider look at how science actually works and what it felt like to be in the middle of it all. This episode is a live session from Day 2 of #ZEEJLF2019.