Anti-swine flu drug Tamil flu now available across India

In an attempt to fight the menace of Swine Flu, an anti-swine flu drug Tamil flu is being launched by the Govt of India in the licenced shops across the country.

The launch of the drug came at a time when the deadly virus has claimed 257 lives and affected 8,153 people in the country.

The drug is sold under the trade name Tamiflu and is taken orally in capsules or a drink.

The ministry of health and family welfare issued a notification on Tuesday allowing “restricted sale” of tamiflu (Oselatamivir) the only available drugs that are used for the treatment of Swine Flu.

Taking into account the current spread of the Influenza A(H1N1) in the country, the health ministry decided that retail sale of tamiflu should be allowed in the country but in a regulated manner.

The retail sale of tamiflu was banned by the central government and its distribution was permissible only through public health institutions.

A 10-tablet strip of tamiflu costs Rs.280.

Nobel Prize In Chemistry: What Ribosomes Look Like And How They Functions At Atomic Level

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2009 jointly to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom; Thomas A. Steitz, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA; and Ada E. Yonath, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome".

The ribosome translates the DNA code into life

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2009 awards studies of one of life's core processes: the ribosome's translation of DNA information into life. Ribosomes produce proteins, which in turn control the chemistry in all living organisms. As ribosomes are crucial to life, they are also a major target for new antibiotics.

This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry awards Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath for having showed what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at the atomic level. All three have used a method called X-ray crystallography to map the position for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome.

Inside every cell in all organisms, there are DNA molecules. They contain the blueprints for how a human being, a plant or a bacterium, looks and functions. But the DNA molecule is passive. If there was nothing else, there would be no life.

The blueprints become transformed into living matter through the work of ribosomes. Based upon the information in DNA, ribosomes make proteins: oxygen-transporting haemoglobin, antibodies of the immune system, hormones such as insulin, the collagen of the skin, or enzymes that break down sugar. There are tens of thousands of proteins in the body and they all have different forms and functions. They build and control life at the chemical level.

An understanding of the ribosome's innermost workings is important for a scientific understanding of life. This knowledge can be put to a practical and immediate use; many of today's antibiotics cure various diseases by blocking the function of bacterial ribosomes. Without functional ribosomes, bacteria cannot survive. This is why ribosomes are such an important target for new antibiotics.

This year's three Laureates have all generated 3D models that show how different antibiotics bind to the ribosome. These models are now used by scientists in order to develop new antibiotics, directly assisting the saving of lives and decreasing humanity's suffering.

V Ramakrishnan wins Nobel prize for Chemistry

Tamil Nadu-born Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, a senior scientist at the MRC Laborartory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge, has won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry along with two others, the Nobel Committee announced on Wednesday.

Born in 1952 in Chidambaram, Ramakrishnan shares the Nobel prize with Thomas E Steitz (US) and Ada E Yonath (Israel) for their "studies of the structure and function of the ribosome".


Ramakrishnan earned his B.Sc. in Physics (1971) from Baroda University and his Ph.D. in Physics (1976) from Ohio University.


He moved into biology at the University of California, San Diego, where he took a year of classes, then conducted research with Dr Mauricio Montal, a membrane biochemist.



With this 5.5 Angstrom-resolution structure, Ramakrishnan's group identified key portions of the RNA and, using previously determined structures, positioned seven of the subunit's proteins.


In the 21st September 2000 issue of Nature, Ramakrishnan published two papers. In the first of these, he presents the 3 Angstrom structure of the 30S ribosomal subunit.


His second paper reveals the structures of the 30S subunit in complex with three antibiotics that target different regions of the subunit. In this paper, Ramakrishnan discusses the structural basis for the action of each of these drugs.

After his postdoctoral fellowship, Ramakrishnan joined the staff of Brookhaven National Laboratory in the US. There, he began his collaboration with Stephen White to clone the genes for several ribosomal proteins and determine their three-dimensional structures.


He was also awarded a Guggenheim fellowship during his tenure there, and he used it to make the transition to X-ray crystallography.

Ramakrishnan moved to the University of Utah in 1995 to become a professor in the Department of Biochemistry. There, he initiated his studies on protein-RNA complexes and the entire 30S subunit.

He since moved to the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, where he is a Senior Scientist and Group Leader in the Structural Studies Division. He joins the list of several Nobel laureates who worked at the laboratory.