21 October 2025: Nobel Prize Laureate Venki Ramakrishnan speaks about the new science of ageing and the quest for immortality

On Tuesday, 21 October 2025, at 7 p.m., Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry Venki Ramakrishnan will give a public lecture on the topic of ‘Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality.’ All interested parties are welcome to attend; registration is not required.

Knowledge about ageing and death has shaped human culture and religion since the beginning of time. Today, biology is opening up the possibility of actively intervening in the ageing process for the first time. With rising life expectancy and falling birth rates, many societies are facing an ageing population. Governments and private investors – often tech billionaires – are therefore intensively promoting ageing research.

In his public lecture, 73-year-old structural biologist and Nobel Prize winner Venkatraman (Venki) Ramakrishnan will highlight key findings on the causes and mechanisms of ageing, future prospects and the possible consequences of a society with extremely long-lived people. The lecture will be held in English.

Venki Ramakrishnan completed his bachelor's degree in physics at Baroda University in India in 1971 and received his PhD in physics from Ohio University in 1976. He then studied biology at the University of California in San Diego for two years before beginning his postdoctoral work with Peter Moore at Yale University. After a long career in the United States at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the University of Utah, he moved to England in 1999, where he is a group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. In 2000, Ramakrishnan’s laboratory determined the atomic structure of the 30S ribosomal subunit and its complexes with ligands and antibiotics. This work led to insights into how the ribosome “reads” the genetic code, as well as antibiotic function. ‘For the studies of the structure and function of the ribosome’ he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009. Venki Ramakrishnan was President of the Royal Society from 2015 to 2020.

More information: tud.de/mn/nobel

Details:
Nobel Prize Laureates at TU Dresden: Venki Ramakrishnan

Public lecture: Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality

 📅 Tuesday, 21 October 2025, 7:00 p.m.

 📍 Audimax at TU Dresden

All interested parties are welcome. Admission is free, and registration is not required.

The public lecture series ‘Nobelpreisträger zu Gast an der TU Dresden” is supported by Ardenne GmbH, the Society of Friends and Sponsors of TU Dresden e.V., the Hotel Taschenbergpalais Kempinski and Lohrmanns Brew.