Gopalasamudram Narayanan Ramachandran

G. N. Ramachandran was a prominent Indian scientist who made significant contributions to the fields of physics and biophysics. He is best known for his work on the structure of proteins and collagen, which he studied using X-ray crystallography. He developed the Ramachandran plot, a graphical tool to visualize the possible conformations of peptide bonds in proteins, and proposed the triple helical model for the structure of collagen, the most abundant protein in mammals. He also made important discoveries in crystal physics, crystal optics, and X-ray diffraction. Ramachandran was born on 8 October 1922 in Ernakulam, Kingdom of Cochin, British India, to a Tamil Brahmin family. His father was a professor of mathematics and his mother was a homemaker. He showed an early interest in mathematics and science and completed his BSc honours in physics from St Joseph's College, Tiruchirappalli in 1939. He then joined the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore for his master's and doctoral studies under the supervision of Nobel laureate Sir C. V. Raman, who was the head of the physics department. He received his master's degree in physics from Madras University in 1942 and his D.Sc. degree in 1947 from IISc. His research focused on crystal physics, crystal optics, and X-ray topography of diamonds. In 1947, he went to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, where he earned his PhD for his studies on X-ray diffuse scattering and its application to determination of elastic constants under the guidance of Professor W.A. Wooster, a leading crystallographer. He returned to India in 1949 and joined IISc as an assistant professor of physics. In 1952, he moved to Madras University as a professor and head of the department of physics, where he established a new centre for research in molecular biophysics. At Madras University, Ramachandran shifted his interest to the structure of biological macromolecules, especially proteins and collagen. He used X-ray diffraction techniques to study their molecular architecture and conformational flexibility. In 1954, he and his student Gopinath Kartha proposed and published the triple helical model for the structure of collagen in the journal Nature, drawing worldwide scientific attention to the "Madras group". In 1963, he introduced the Ramachandran plot, a two-dimensional map that shows the allowed regions of dihedral angles (phi and psi) for each amino acid residue in a protein chain. The Ramachandran plot is widely used as a tool to analyze and validate protein structures obtained from experimental or computational methods. Ramachandran also made other notable contributions in biophysics, such as proposing a structure for polyglycine II, developing methods for Fourier synthesis of protein structures from X-ray data, studying the optical activity and circular dichroism of proteins, and exploring the applications of fibre diffraction analysis. He also had a keen interest in philosophy and mathematics and wrote several papers on topics such as Boolean algebra, fuzzy logic, syadvada (the doctrine of may be), and mathematical philosophy. Ramachandran was a highly influential figure in Indian science and mentored many students and researchers who went on to become eminent scientists themselves. He received many awards and honors for his scientific achievements, such as the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (1962), the Padma Shri (1971), the Padma Vibhushan (1976), the Fellowship of the Royal Society (1977), and the UNESCO Science Prize (1994). He was also a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, the Indian Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences, India. Ramachandran was married to Rajalakshmi Ramachandran, who was a professor of psychology and a pioneer of special education in India. They had no children. Ramachandran was devastated by her death in 1998 and his health gradually deteriorated. He suffered a stroke and was affected by Parkinson's disease in his later years. He died on 7 April 2001 in Chennai at the age of 78.