G.N. Ramachandran: Mapping Protein Shape

Every biology student learning protein structure eventually meets a graph named after an Indian physicist: the Ramachandran plot. G.N. Ramachandran mapped which shapes a protein chain can physically take, and which it can’t. It’s one of structural biology’s foundational tools, and it never won its creator a Nobel Prize.

Must Know

• Gopalasamudram Narayana Ramachandran (8 October 1922 – 7 April 2001) was born in Ernakulam, Kerala. He’s called the father of molecular biophysics in India.
• Ramachandran topped his B.Sc. (Honours) in Physics at the University of Madras in 1942. He earned his D.Sc. at IISc Bangalore in 1947, studying under Nobel laureate C.V. Raman.
• With Gopinath Kartha, Ramachandran proposed the triple-helical structure of collagen. This was the first fibrous protein structure ever determined, and the first biomolecular structure worked out in India.
• In 1962, Ramachandran and colleagues published the Phi-Psi plot, now known as the Ramachandran Plot. It maps which rotation angles a protein’s backbone can physically take, clearly separating allowed shapes from impossible ones.
• In 1971, Ramachandran founded the Molecular Biophysics Unit at IISc Bangalore, building a lasting institutional home for structural biology in India.
• Ramachandran died on 7 April 2001, in Madras, after a prolonged illness with Parkinson’s disease.

Good to Know

• Ramachandran received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 1958 and the Padma Bhushan in 1963. The Royal Society elected him a Fellow in 1977.
• He also received the Meghnad Saha Medal, the Srinivasa Ramanujan Medal, and the Sir C.V. Raman Medal, all from Indian science academies.
• The Ramachandran Plot uses two angles, called Phi and Psi, to describe rotation around a protein backbone’s chemical bonds. Every introductory structural biology course still teaches it today.

Test Yourself

Please wait…

1. G.N. Ramachandran, called the father of molecular biophysics in India, earned his D.Sc. at IISc Bangalore under which Nobel laureate?

Har Gobind Khorana

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

C.V. Raman

Homi Bhabha

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Great to Know

• Ramachandran never won a Nobel Prize, despite work many scientists consider Nobel-calibre. Several later Nobel Prizes in structural biology built directly on tools and concepts his plot established.
• The Ramachandran Plot’s real power is negative, not positive. It doesn’t just show which protein shapes are possible; it rules out huge regions of theoretically imaginable shapes as physically impossible, dramatically narrowing what researchers need to search for.
• Collagen is the human body’s most abundant protein, found in skin, bone, and connective tissue throughout the body. Working out its exact structure wasn’t a narrow academic exercise. It had real implications for understanding everything from wound healing to genetic collagen disorders.