Giants in History: Gopalasamudram Narayanan Ramachandran

Gopalasamudram Narayanan Ramachandran (8 October 1922 – 7 April 2001) is best known for developing the Ramachandran plot to understand the structure of short chains of amino acids, known as peptides. He was also the first to propose the triple-helical model for the structure of collagen. Most of Ramachandran’s major discoveries were made when India had just achieved independence, a time when scientific research was a low priority. Ramanchandran established the molecular biophysics departments at the University of Madras and the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, which have become internationally recognized centres for biophysics research and graduate education in India.