Interview with Dr Venki Ramakrishnan

As Swati has mentioned, over the course of December and January, we’ve been lucky enough to have a number of UK Nobel Prize winners visit India to give lectures. We’re particularly grateful to Dr Venki Ramakrishnan, who will be spending over a month here and giving lectures in five cities. I caught up with Dr Ramakrishnan just before he left the UK.

You’ve had a fairly international career with stints in the US and UK. What attracted you to Cambridge?

Cambridge has provided stable support for my research, which is important for quality work to happen, and I was attracted by the opportunity to work at an institute with a focus on difficult, long term problems.

You’ve been there about 14 years now I think, what’s your favourite thing about living there?

Cambridge really has everything I need close by, so I don’t need a car to get around! For a city with so much to offer, it’s very compact.

What would your advice be to a young Indian researcher just setting out on their career?

I would say go to a lab where you’re fascinated by the research. Follow your interests! It’s a bit trite, but absolutely true.

We’re all about collaboration in the Science & Innovation Network, but you must have people from all over the world want to work with you. What do you look for in a research partner?

I look for complementary interests and skills, and people who share our own research goals. They are really the basis of a strong research relationship that can bear fruit.

We try to link centres of excellence in the UK and India together. In your field, where do you see the big opportunities for UK and Indian research collaboration?

The big opportunities for UK – India research collaboration that I see are probably with institutes in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune. These aren’t in my field, but in the area of infectious diseases, especially in TB and malaria. There’s lots of complementarity between the research here and, of course, they’re huge problems which need addressing.