Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan has assumed Presidency of the Royal Society in London. He was elected to the office in March 2015 by the society’s council and will serve for up to five years. With this appointment, he became the 61st president of the society. And, he joined the elite club that has included Christopher Wren, Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton, Joseph Banks, Humphry Davy, and Ernest Rutherford.

Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

• He studied how genetic information is translated by the ribosome to make proteins and the action of antibiotics on this process.
• The Indian-American scientist Venkatraman Ramakrishnan received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009 with Tom Steitz and Ada Yonath.
• He was awarded a knighthood in 2012
• He has a B.Sc in physics from Baroda University, India and a PhD from Ohio University in the USA.

Royal Society

• The Royal Society is a learned society for science and is possibly the oldest such society still in existence.
• Founded in November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by King Charles II as “The Royal Society”.
• The society today acts as a scientific advisor to the British government, receiving a parliamentary grant-in-aid.
• The society acts as the UK’s Academy of Sciences and funds research fellowships and scientific start-up companies.