Har Gobind Khorana received the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
The Nobel Prize Organization has shared a post remembering Har Gobind Khorana, who died on this day in 2011. Mr Khorana rose from a childhood of poverty in India to become a Nobel-winning biochemist and went on to teach at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
According to the Nobel Prize Organization, an obituary published in Nature shortly after his death on November 9, 2011, stated: "That someone with such a humble background could rise to become an icon of molecular biology is a testament to his extraordinary drive, discipline and striving for excellence."
Har Gobind Khorana was born in 1922 in a small village called Raipur in Punjab (now in present day Pakistan).
His father was a village agricultural taxation clerk in the British Indian system of government. Although poor, he was dedicated to educating his children, states the Organization. Theirs was practically the only literate family in the village of about a 100 people.
Despite lack of resources and poor educational facilities, Mr Khorana completed high school and went on to receive bachelor's and master's degrees in chemistry from University of the Punjab in Lahore.
In 1945, he moved to the University of Liverpool, UK, under a Government of India Fellowship where he obtained a PhD in 1948.
A job offer in 1952 from Dr. Gordon M Shrum of British Columbia took him to Vancouver, where he initiated his Nobel Prize winning work. A few years after that, he moved to the Institute for Enzyme Research at the University of Wisconsin and became a naturalised citizen of the United States in 1966.
Har Gobind Khorana received the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Robert W Holley of Cornell University and Marshall W Nirenberg of the National Institutes of Health "for their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis."
He joined the MIT faculty in 1970 and retired in 2007.
On his death anniversary, the Nobel Prize Organization's post has been filled with comments from people remembering the man who rose from humble beginnings to win a Nobel Prize.
While one Instagram user hailed him as an "inspiration", another wrote, "His journey was exceptional."
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