Biography of Har Gobind Khorana

Har Gobind Khorana (9 January 1922 – 9 November 2011) was an Indian-American biochemist who helped to crack the genetic code, the language in which our DNA gives instructions to build the body. This Har Gobind Khorana biography tells his life story, history and contribution to science in very simple words. He was born in a small village in Punjab, in a poor family, and became a professor at world-famous universities. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968 with Marshall Nirenberg and Robert Holley. He also made the first artificial gene in a laboratory, and his work opened the way for modern genetic engineering.

Har Gobind Khorana Biography at a Glance (Quick Facts)

Detail	Information
Full Name	Har Gobind Khorana
Born	9 January 1922
Birthplace	Raipur village, Multan district, Punjab, British India (now in Pakistan)
Died	9 November 2011 (aged 89)
Place of Death	Concord, Massachusetts, USA
Famous For	Deciphering the genetic code; first synthetic gene
Father	Ganpat Rai Khorana (a village revenue clerk, patwari)
Mother	Krishna Devi
Wife	Esther Elizabeth Sibler (married 1952)
Education	D.A.V. High School, Multan; Punjab University, Lahore (B.Sc. 1943, M.Sc. 1945); University of Liverpool (Ph.D. 1948)
Worked At	Cambridge, British Columbia, Wisconsin-Madison, MIT
Major Award	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1968)
Other Honours	Padma Vibhushan (1969), National Medal of Science (1987), Lasker Award
Nationality	Indian by birth; became a US citizen in 1966

Who Was Har Gobind Khorana?

Har Gobind Khorana was a scientist who studied the chemistry of life. He was an expert in a difficult field: making small pieces of DNA and RNA, called nucleotide chains, in the lab. By making these chains himself, and testing them, he was able to show which letters of the DNA language stand for which amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.

His work is an example of hard, patient and detailed laboratory science. He was also a soft-spoken, humble and gentle person, who never forgot the village he came from. He always credited his teachers and his colleagues.

If a student asks, "Who is Khorana?", the answer is: the Indian-born scientist who helped to decode the genetic code and made the first artificial gene, for which he shared the 1968 Nobel Prize.

Har Gobind Khorana Early Life and Family

Birth and a Village Childhood

Har Gobind Khorana was born on 9 January 1922, in Raipur, a small village in the Multan district of Punjab, in British India. Today the village is in Pakistan. He was the youngest of five children in a Punjabi Hindu family. His father, Ganpat Rai Khorana, worked as a patwari, a village revenue clerk. His mother was Krishna Devi.

It is said that his was the only literate family in a village of about 100 people. The family was poor, but his father was a firm believer in education. He taught his children to read and write and made sure that they went to school.

Schooling

Khorana first studied in the village under a tree. Later, he went to the D.A.V. High School in Multan. He was a brilliant student, and his teachers gave him a lot of encouragement. He got scholarships throughout his studies, which helped his poor family. He remembered later that his teachers were the ones who gave him the love of science.

Har Gobind Khorana Education

After school, Khorana joined Punjab University in Lahore, where he studied chemistry. He got his B.Sc. in 1943 and M.Sc. in 1945, always at the top of his class. He loved the subject of organic chemistry.

In 1945, he received a fellowship from the Government of India to go to England for higher studies. He joined the University of Liverpool and completed his Ph.D. in 1948, under the guidance of Professor Roger J. S. Beer. His thesis was in organic chemistry.

After the Ph.D., he spent a year at ETH Zurich in Switzerland (1948–49), working with the professor Vladimir Prelog, a future Nobel Prize winner. He then went to Cambridge (1950–52) to work with Alexander Todd, who was a leading scientist in the chemistry of nucleotides. This gave Khorana a lifelong interest in the chemistry of DNA and RNA.

Early Career: Vancouver, Wisconsin and MIT

In 1952, Khorana joined the British Columbia Research Council in Vancouver, Canada, and later the University of British Columbia. He was in Canada for eight years and built a strong research group on nucleotide chemistry. In this time, in 1952, he also married Esther Elizabeth Sibler, a Swiss woman. They had three children.

In 1960, he moved to the Institute for Enzyme Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the USA. This was the place where he did his Nobel-winning work. In 1966, he became a US citizen. In 1970, he moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he stayed until he retired in 2007.

DNA, RNA, Genes and Proteins in Simple Words

To understand what Khorana did, it helps to know a few simple words about how life works.

Term	Simple Meaning
DNA	A long molecule in our cells that carries the instructions to build and run the body
RNA	A similar molecule that carries a copy of the instructions from the DNA to the places where proteins are built
Nucleotide	The small building block of DNA and RNA. There are four types, called A, C, G and T in DNA (and U instead of T in RNA)
Gene	A piece of DNA that has the instructions for one protein
Protein	A large molecule made of amino acids that does most of the work in the body
Amino acid	The small building block of proteins. There are 20 common types
Codon	A group of three nucleotides, which is a code word for one amino acid or a stop signal

You can think of DNA as a book written in a language with only four letters (A, C, G and T). Every word in this language is three letters long. Each three-letter word, called a codon, tells the cell which amino acid to add to a growing protein. The big question of the 1950s and 1960s was: which three-letter word stands for which amino acid? This is the genetic code.

Cracking the Genetic Code (1960s)

After James Watson and Francis Crick described the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, scientists wanted to read the code. In 1961, Marshall Nirenberg and Heinrich Matthaei made a breakthrough. They showed that a chain made only of the letter U (UUU...) gives a protein made only of the amino acid phenylalanine. So UUU stands for phenylalanine. But this trick worked only for a few simple chains.

Here, Khorana's special skill was the key. He had learned how to chemically make RNA chains with any pattern of letters that he wanted, for example, a repeating pattern like CUCUCUCU... He made many such chains with known repeating patterns. When these chains were placed in a test tube with the machinery for making proteins, they produced proteins with a known pattern of amino acids.

By comparing the patterns, Khorana was able to work out the meaning of many codons. His work confirmed that the code is read in triplets (three letters at a time), without overlaps, and without gaps. He also identified the stop codons, which tell the cell that the protein is complete. Together with the work of Nirenberg and others, all 64 possible codons were finally decoded by 1966.

Codon (RNA)	Amino Acid or Signal
UUU	Phenylalanine
AUG	Methionine (also the start signal)
GGC	Glycine
UAA, UAG, UGA	Stop signals

The Nobel Prize (1968)

In 1968, Har Gobind Khorana shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley "for their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis". Nirenberg had found the first codons, Khorana had confirmed and completed the code with his synthetic RNA chains, and Holley had worked out the structure of a transfer RNA. The prize was announced when Khorana was 46.

He was very humble at the award ceremony, and he said that a great part of the credit belonged to his co-workers, students and technicians.

The First Artificial Gene (1970–1976)

After the Nobel Prize, Khorana took on an even bigger challenge: to build a gene from scratch in the laboratory. In 1970, his team at Wisconsin completed the chemical synthesis of the gene for a yeast transfer RNA, made of 77 nucleotides. This was the world's first synthetic gene. It took years and many scientists.

In the following years, his team at MIT built a more complex gene, the gene for a bacterial transfer RNA (tyrosine), with all the "on" and "off" signals needed to work inside a living cell. In 1976, they showed that this artificial gene functioned in a bacterium. It was a huge step. It proved that human beings could design and build genes. Many people see Khorana as one of the pioneers of synthetic biology.

Why Khorana's Work Still Matters

The techniques that Khorana developed became the base of many later inventions.

• Making short pieces of DNA (oligonucleotides): These are used today as "primers" in the PCR test, which is used to detect diseases like COVID-19 and to study genes.
• DNA sequencing: Reading the order of letters in DNA needs artificially made pieces.
• Genetic engineering: Making insulin and other medicines in bacteria uses synthetic genes.
• Biotechnology: Vaccines, diagnostic kits and gene therapy owe a lot to the methods he developed.
• Research on vision: His later work on rhodopsin and bacteriorhodopsin helped us to understand how the eye sees light and how proteins move across cell membranes.

Later Work at MIT: Vision and Membrane Proteins

In the 1970s and after, Khorana used his skills to study proteins in the cell membrane. He worked on bacteriorhodopsin, a protein in bacteria that uses light to pump protons, and on rhodopsin, the light-sensing protein in the human eye. By making changes in the gene and studying the changed protein, he learned which parts of the protein do which job. This work opened up a new way of studying proteins, called site-directed mutagenesis. He continued research until he retired in 2007, at the age of 85.

Har Gobind Khorana Contribution to Science

The Har Gobind Khorana contribution can be understood in simple points:

1. Deciphering the genetic code: He made synthetic RNA chains that helped to decode the code.
2. Discovering how the code is read: In triplets, with start and stop signals.
3. Making the first synthetic gene: A milestone in genetic engineering.
4. Developing DNA synthesis methods: Now used in every biotech lab.
5. Studying vision and membrane proteins: His later work on rhodopsin.
6. Training scientists: Many of his students became leaders in biology.

Har Gobind Khorana Timeline (Year-Wise History)

This table gives his life at a glance.

Year	Event
1922	Born on 9 January in Raipur, Punjab
1943	B.Sc. from Punjab University, Lahore
1945	M.Sc.; goes to England on a fellowship
1948	Ph.D. from the University of Liverpool
1950–52	Works at Cambridge with Alexander Todd
1952	Joins British Columbia; marries Esther Sibler
1960	Joins the University of Wisconsin-Madison
1961–66	Helps to decode the genetic code
1966	Becomes a US citizen
1968	Wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1970	Completes the first synthetic gene
1970	Joins MIT
1976	Shows that a synthetic gene works in a living cell
2007	Retires; the Khorana Program is set up in India and the USA
2011	Dies on 9 November in Concord, Massachusetts

Har Gobind Khorana Awards and Honours

Here are the main honours he received.

Honour	Year
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine	1968
Padma Vibhushan (India)	1969
Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (with Nirenberg)	1969
Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research	1969
Willard Gibbs Award	1974
Gairdner Foundation Award	1980
Foreign Member of the Royal Society	1978
National Medal of Science (USA)	1987

The Khorana Program

In 2007, the Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum set up the Khorana Program to give Indian students research opportunities in the United States. Every year, students from Indian universities are chosen to work in labs in American universities for a summer. The program is a fitting tribute to Khorana, who himself moved from a village in Punjab to the top laboratories of the world.

Personality and Beliefs of Har Gobind Khorana

Khorana was calm, hard-working and modest. He often said that success in science needs patience and a willingness to do the hard, boring parts of an experiment for years. He led a simple life, and enjoyed music, mountains and nature. He was known for his kindness to his students, and for insisting that credit should be shared with the whole team.

Although he lived most of his life abroad, he kept his roots in India. He was always proud of being an Indian, and he encouraged young Indian scientists.

How Did Har Gobind Khorana Die? (Death Reason)

Har Gobind Khorana died on 9 November 2011 in Concord, Massachusetts, USA, at the age of 89. He had been in poor health for some time, and died of natural causes linked with old age. His wife Esther had died in 2001, and he was survived by his children. The scientific world remembered him as a giant of biochemistry.

Har Gobind Khorana Legacy: Why He Is Remembered

Khorana's legacy is in every lab that makes DNA, in every medicine made with genetic engineering, and in every student who studies the genetic code. His story is also one of the great inspiring stories of Indian science: a boy from a village where few could read grew up to win the Nobel Prize.

In India, his name is remembered through the Khorana Program, through several scholarships and through the pride of Punjab. In the United States, the Khorana laboratories at MIT and the University of Wisconsin keep his memory alive.

Interesting Facts About Har Gobind Khorana

• He was born in a village where his was the only literate family.
• He first studied under a tree in the village.
• He always won scholarships, which helped him to study.
• He used chemical synthesis to make RNA chains with a known pattern.
• He shared the Nobel Prize with Marshall Nirenberg and Robert Holley.
• He built the first artificial gene in 1970.
• He worked at Wisconsin and MIT for over 45 years.
• He became a US citizen in 1966.
• He received the Padma Vibhushan in 1969.
• The Khorana Program takes Indian students to US labs.

Har Gobind Khorana Biography: Important Points for SSC and Other Exams

• Born on 9 January 1922 in Raipur (now in Pakistan); died on 9 November 2011.
• Shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968.
• Helped to decode the genetic code; showed that the code is read in triplets.
• Made the first synthetic gene in 1970.
• Worked at MIT from 1970 to 2007.
• Padma Vibhushan in 1969; National Medal of Science in 1987.
• Khorana Program was set up in 2007.
• Co-winners of the 1968 Nobel Prize: Marshall Nirenberg and Robert Holley.

Practice Questions (with Answers)

Question	Answer
In which year did Khorana win the Nobel Prize?	1968
Which molecule did Khorana synthesise in the lab in 1970?	A gene (for a yeast transfer RNA)
Who shared the Nobel Prize with him?	Marshall Nirenberg and Robert Holley
What is a codon?	A group of three nucleotides that codes for an amino acid
Where did he work from 1970 to 2007?	MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Common Confusions About Har Gobind Khorana

• Khorana is not the same as C. V. Raman or Chandrasekhar. They are Nobel winners in Physics.
• He did not discover DNA's structure. Watson and Crick did in 1953.
• He was not the only one to crack the code. Nirenberg, Holley and many others also worked on it.
• The spelling varies: Har Gobind Khorana and Hargobind Khorana are the same person.

How to Remember the Story of Har Gobind Khorana for Exams

1. Who: Har Gobind Khorana, biochemist from Punjab.
2. Born: 9 January 1922; died 9 November 2011.
3. Work: Genetic code and synthetic RNA chains.
4. Prize: Nobel Prize in 1968.
5. First: The first artificial gene in 1970.
6. Place: MIT (1970–2007).

Lessons Students Can Learn from Har Gobind Khorana

• Education can change a life. A patwari's son became a Nobel winner.
• Work patiently. His experiments took years.
• Be humble. He shared credit with all.
• Use scholarships wisely. He studied on merit-based support.
• Help the next generation. The Khorana Program does this.

The Three Winners of the 1968 Nobel Prize

The 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was shared by three scientists, each of whom did a different part of the work.

Scientist	Contribution
Marshall W. Nirenberg (USA)	Made the first breakthrough in 1961 by showing that UUU codes for phenylalanine, and worked out many other codons
Har Gobind Khorana (India-born, USA)	Made synthetic RNA chains with known patterns; confirmed the triplet code and found the stop signals
Robert W. Holley (USA)	Worked out the structure of transfer RNA, the molecule that brings amino acids to the protein factory

Simple Facts About the Genetic Code

Here are some facts about the genetic code that every student should know.

• There are 64 possible codons, because there are 4 letters and each codon has 3 letters (4 × 4 × 4 = 64).
• Out of these, 61 codons stand for amino acids and 3 codons are stop signals.
• There are only 20 common amino acids, so many amino acids are coded by more than one codon. This is called the redundancy or degeneracy of the code.
• The codon AUG stands for methionine and also works as the "start" signal.
• The code is almost universal. The same codons stand for the same amino acids in bacteria, plants, animals and humans, which is strong evidence that all life shares a common origin.

A Day in the Life of a Nucleotide Chemist

Khorana's type of work was very slow and careful. To build a piece of DNA, a chemist has to join nucleotides one by one in the right order, using special chemical reactions. Each step must work almost perfectly, or the chain will be wrong. Then the chemist has to clean and check the product, often with a lot of equipment. In the 1960s, when there were no automatic machines, this work needed great skill and patience. Khorana had a large team of chemists and students, and they worked through the day and night for many years to complete the artificial gene.

Today, machines called DNA synthesisers can make short DNA chains in a few hours, and the scientists who use them owe a great deal to the ideas of Khorana.

Khorana's Advice to Young Scientists

Khorana believed that a young scientist should choose a problem that is important and hard, and stay with it for many years. He also said that a scientist should be ready to learn new methods, even if they come from another field. He gave much credit to his teachers in Punjab, England and Switzerland. In talks to students, he often spoke about the value of hard work, curiosity and teamwork. These simple ideas guided him from a village school to the Nobel Prize.

Khorana and India: A Bridge Between Two Worlds

Khorana spent most of his life outside India, but he never lost his link with his homeland. He was proud of his Punjabi roots and often spoke about the village where he was born. He supported programmes to send Indian students to good labs abroad and visited Indian institutions on several occasions.

Many Indian scientists working in biotechnology today cite Khorana as an inspiration. When they think of a career in biology, they see in him proof that a student from a small school in India can compete with the best in the world. This is why his name is remembered in Indian science with such great respect, and why the Khorana Program is so valuable for young researchers.

Why Khorana's Story Matters for Students Today

In the age of gene editing tools like CRISPR and vaccines made with the help of RNA, the work of Khorana is very relevant. The idea that we can read and write the language of life began with scientists like him. For a student who is choosing a career, his life shows that biology, chemistry and technology are linked, and that basic research done with patience can change the world decades later.

Related People and Topics

You can also read about Marshall Nirenberg, Robert Holley, Francis Crick, James Watson, Alexander Todd, Genetic code, Synthetic biology, MIT.

Key Takeaways

• Har Gobind Khorana (1922–2011) was an Indian-American biochemist.
• He helped to crack the genetic code and won the Nobel Prize in 1968.
• He made the first artificial gene in 1970.
• His methods are used in genetic engineering and medicine today.
• He died on 9 November 2011.

Har Gobind Khorana Biography: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1. Who was Har Gobind Khorana?

Har Gobind Khorana was an Indian-American biochemist who helped to decode the genetic code and shared the Nobel Prize in 1968. He also made the first synthetic gene.

Q2. When and where was Khorana born?

He was born on 9 January 1922 in Raipur village, Multan district, Punjab, in British India (now in Pakistan).

Q3. Who were the parents of Khorana?

His father was Ganpat Rai Khorana, a village revenue clerk, and his mother was Krishna Devi.

Q4. Where did Khorana study?

He studied at D.A.V. High School in Multan, then at Punjab University, Lahore, and finally at the University of Liverpool, where he got his Ph.D. in 1948.

Q5. Why is Khorana famous?

He is famous for his work in deciphering the genetic code and for creating the first artificial gene, and for winning the Nobel Prize in 1968.

Q6. What is the genetic code?

It is the set of rules by which the information in DNA and RNA is used to make proteins. Each group of three letters (codon) stands for an amino acid or a stop signal.

Q7. What was Khorana's role in cracking the genetic code?

He chemically made RNA chains with known repeating patterns. These helped to work out the meaning of many codons and to show that the code is read in triplets.

Q8. When did Khorana win the Nobel Prize?

He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968, shared with Marshall Nirenberg and Robert Holley.

Q9. What was the first synthetic gene?

It was the gene for a yeast alanine transfer RNA, made of 77 nucleotides, completed by Khorana's team in 1970.

Q10. Did Khorana discover DNA?

No. DNA was known before. Watson and Crick described its double-helix structure in 1953. Khorana helped to decode how DNA and RNA give instructions for proteins.

Q11. What is a codon?

A codon is a group of three nucleotides in DNA or RNA that stands for one amino acid or a stop signal.

Q12. What are stop codons?

They are the codons UAA, UAG and UGA in RNA. They tell the cell that the protein is complete.

Q13. Where did Khorana work?

He worked at the University of British Columbia, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and MIT, where he stayed from 1970 until he retired in 2007.

Q14. Which awards did Khorana receive?

He received the Nobel Prize (1968), the Padma Vibhushan (1969), the Lasker Award (1969), the Willard Gibbs Award (1974) and the National Medal of Science (1987).

Q15. Was Khorana an American citizen?

He became a US citizen in 1966, though he was born in British India and later remained proud of his Indian roots.

Q16. Who was the wife of Khorana?

His wife was Esther Elizabeth Sibler, a Swiss woman. They married in 1952 and had three children.

Q17. What is the Khorana Program?

It is a program set up in 2007 by the Government of India, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum to give Indian students research training in the USA.

Q18. How is Khorana's work used today?

The methods for making pieces of DNA that he developed are used in PCR tests, DNA sequencing, genetic engineering and biotechnology.

Q19. What did Khorana study in his later years?

He studied rhodopsin, the light-sensing protein in the eye, and bacteriorhodopsin, a light-driven protein pump in bacteria.

Q20. Who were the co-winners of the 1968 Nobel Prize with Khorana?

Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley shared the prize with him.

Q21. How did Khorana die?

He died on 9 November 2011 in Concord, Massachusetts, USA, at the age of 89, of natural causes linked with old age.

Q22. What can students learn from Khorana?

Students can learn that education and hard work can take a person from a small village to the world's best labs, and that patience and humility are the marks of a great scientist.