Venki Ramakrishnan 30th Ulam Lecture Night 2 The knowledge of aging and death has driven human culture, including our religions, ever since we became aware of our mortality. For much of our existence there was not much we could do about it. But over the past few decades, biology has made major advances in our understanding of the causes of aging, opening for the first time the possibility of intervening in the process. At the same time, the combination of longer lives and reduced fertility rates means that many societies are faced with an aging population. This has led to large investments in aging research from governments and private industry funded largely by tech billionaires, resulting in both real advances and a large amount of hype. In this talk, Venki Ramakrishnan will discuss some of the key findings about why and how we age and die and prospects for the future. He will also explore the possible consequences of societies with extremely long-lived populations.

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Venki Ramakrishnan 30th Ulam Lecture Night 1 Ramakrishnan will provide a history of molecular visualization, as well as take us through his work at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, where his team determined the atomic structure of the 30S ribosomal subunit and its complexes with ligands and antibiotics. Everyone is familiar with DNA, but by itself, DNA is just an inert blueprint for life. It is the ribosome — an enormous molecular machine made up of a million atoms — that makes DNA come to life, turning our genetic code into proteins and therefore into us. He will talk about the ribosome (the “Gene Machine”), and how his team learned about its structure. He will also share some recent developments, including the development of cryoEM — a powerful technique used to determine the structure of three-dimensional structure of biological molecules at near-atomic resolution.

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