While the world is in awe of the fastest ever vaccine development in human history, let us take a look back at one of the historical discoveries that made it all happen.
January 9 2022 marked the 100th birth anniversary of Dr Har Gobind Khorana, a biochemist born in British India. Dr Khorana along with his colleagues Marshall Nirenberg and Robert Holley, is best known for his Nobel prize winning discovery of the biochemical process of protein synthesis.
As a part of this work the now well known molecule of mRNA was discovered. This group also found methods to make small strands of DNA & RNA (called oligonucleotides) in a test tube with the help of a concoction of enzymes. It is these oligonucleotides that form the basis of the PCR method – now a gold standard for Covid diagnosis.
This article by the Wired, talks about the contributions of Dr Har Gobind Khorana.
A close reading of historical scientific discoveries brings out the Lego block like nature of science. Every new find is a Lego block that can be used in multiple ways to build different technologies in future.
Image Credit – Ab kam, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons