UK-based Nobel laureates to visit India

The visit is aimed to reflect the deepening bilateral ties in the field of scientific research

Leading British Nobel Prize-winning scientists will visit India this month and deliver several lectures, reflecting the deepening bilateral ties in the field of scientific research.

Venki Ramakrishnan, an India-born British-American structural biologist and a Padma Vibhushan winner, will speak in New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai.

Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society and director of the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation, will deliver the Blackett Memorial Lecture in New Delhi.

Professor Andre Geim, Russia-born Dutch-British physicist working at the University of Manchester, delivered a lecture at the sixth Bangalore India Nano earlier this month.

The UK is hugely proud of its leading research community, said James Bevan, British High Commissioner to India.

The Nobel laureates visiting India are a perfect embodiment of world-class scientists who have chosen the UK as the base for their cutting-edge research. With 78 Nobel Prizes in science and technology and with four of the top ten universities globally, the UK is a great place to pursue further research or study, Bevan said.

Ramakrishnan, who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, said: "I moved to the UK from the USA 15 years ago because of the first-rate intellectual environment and stable support in Cambridge for research that over the past 50 years has resulted in revolutionising our understanding of molecular biology."

Each year, the best young researchers from around the world are welcomed to begin their careers in labs, said Ramakrishnan, Fellow of the Royal Society and Trinity College at Cambridge University.

The winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology, Nurse, said he was delighted to give the Blackett Memorial Lecture in Delhi this week.

"India has a rich scientific heritage and its clear that the current leadership is committed to building the country s reputation as a rising power in science, for example through its Space Research Progamme," he said.

"This presents exciting opportunities for UK and India- based scientists to collaborate," he added.