India's Silent Scientists

Ask any scientist who acknowledges original research to give a list of Indians who should have got a Nobel Prize, and you will find the name G N Ramachandran (1922- 2001) there. Though trained as a physicist, Ramachandran's greatest contributions were to biology, where he formulated the 'Ramachandran plots' which every biophysicist uses while studying proteins. His triplehelix structure of collagen is a classic discovery worth a Nobel.

'History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization' says Ramachandran's lesser known contribution was to three-dimensional image reconstruction , which redefined the way we look inside the human body without cutting it open. Some, like P M Bhargava, founder director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, believe Ramachandran should be considered the father of NMR and CT scan, though some others took credit for it. "Ramachandran was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society after some of us worked hard for it. He never asked for it," says Bhargava . "He was neither elected as a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of the US, nor nominated for a Nobel Prize which he richly deserved."

ToI: India's silent scientists