Har Gobind Khorana

Biography

Har Gobind Khorana (9 January 1922 – 9 November 2011) was an Indian-American biochemist . [ 1 ] While on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison , he shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for research that showed the order of nucleotides in nucleic acids , which carry the genetic code of the cell and control the cell's synthesis of proteins. Khorana and Nirenberg were also awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in the same year. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Born in Raipur , Punjab (during the British Raj ), Khorana served on the faculties of three universities in North America . He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1966, [ 4 ] and received the National Medal of Science in 1987. [ 5 ] Har Gobind Khorana was born during the British Raj to Ganpatrai Khorana and Krishna Devi, in Raipur , a village in Multan , Punjab , British India, in a Punjabi Hindu Khatri family. [ 6 ] The exact date of his birth is not certain but he believed that it might have been 9 January 1922; [ 7 ] this date was later shown in some documents, and has been widely accepted. [ 8 ] He was the youngest of five children. His father was a patwari , a village agricultural taxation clerk in the British Indian government. In his autobiography, Khorana wrote this summary: "Although poor, my father was dedicated to educating his children and we were practically the only literate family in the village inhabited by about 100 people." [ 9 ] The first four years of his education were provided under a tree, a spot that was, in effect, the only school in the village." [ 6 ] He did not even own a pencil until age 6. [ 10 ] Fields: Molecular biology Education: Punjab University BS MS University of Liverpool PhD

About the Lasker Award

The Lasker Awards have been awarded annually since 1946 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science or who have performed public service on behalf of medicine. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation, founded by advertising pioneer Albert Lasker and his wife Mary Woodard Lasker (a medical research activist). The awards are sometimes referred to as "America's Nobels."

Quick Facts

• Award: Lasker Award - Basic Medical Research
• Added: 2026-02-07
• Source: Wikipedia
• Established: 1946
• Presented by: Lasker Foundation

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