Venkatraman Ramakrishnan knighted in honours list 2012
31 Dec 2011
Indian-origin scientist Venkatraman Ramakrishnan whose pioneering work in Molecular Biology won him the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been knighted in the New Years Honours List 2012.
Ramakrishnan, who is a US citizen, is based at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and has been conferred knighthood "for services to Molecular Biology", according to an official announcement in London.
With the conferring of the knighthood, he will be known as 'Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan'. The ceremony will be held at the Buckingham Palace later in the new year, when Queen Elizabeth will confer the knighthood on him.
Ramakrishnan (58) was born in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, and studied at Baroda University, Ohio University and the University of California, San Diego.
He was awarded Padma Vibhushan in 2010.
Two other Nobel laureates - professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, from the University of Manchester who were instrumental in the creation of graphene, a sheet of carbon just one atom thick, have also received knighthoods. The duo won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010.
The 2010 New Year Honours List included Indian-origin Mota Singh, Britain's first Sikh judge, who was honoured with a knighthood.