Born 72 years ago in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, to scientist parents, a brother also an immunologist at Cambridge, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan moved from theoretical physics to biology, becoming one of the greatest experts on ribosomes, the molecular machines that line up amino acids in cells following the order dictated by DNA to messenger RNA and thus synthesize proteins. In practice, they are the factories of life and Ramakrishnan defined their atomic structure, composing it like a puzzle and earning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009. He has just published a book on longevity (the industry of which is worth 30 billion dollars a year) that is simply entitled: Why we die. His thesis – in an interview with the weekly ‘7’ of the ‘Corriere della Sera’ – is mixed: a further extension of life expectancy is within reach, but the challenge of the quality of that life so prolonged has not yet been resolved. Above all, the ambition of immortality risks having a very high social and economic cost.
In the next few days Ramakrishnan will be in Milan for the 48th international congress of biochemical research and we asked him to update us on some aspects of his research that have a great social impact. What new scientific results will he announce at the Bücher Lecture in Milan? “I intend to talk about the mechanisms through which protein synthesis is initiated in cells – replies the scientist – This is a highly regulated and controlled process. Many viruses act by altering it and, when the process is anomalous, there are implications for diseases and on aging”.
What do we still need to learn about how cells work and the signals they send internally and externally? “There is a huge amount of information we don’t know about how cells work, not only internally, to maintain their functional state, but also how they communicate with each other and what happens when these processes go wrong,” he explains.
‘The natural limit of our species is no more than about 120 years’
Your research on the structure and function of ribosomes also has profound implications for understanding the modes of action and effects of antibiotics. There is growing concern about the spread of antibiotic resistance around the world. Some very dangerous superbugs are insensitive even to cocktails of antibiotics. What are the most urgent actions to stem the phenomenon? “We need to act on multiple fronts. The first is public health measures to prevent the spread of disease and maintain good health. The second – Ramakrishnan emphasizes – is to curb the misuse of antibiotics, both in unnecessary prescriptions to humans and in their widespread use in agriculture and livestock farming. Finally, we need more research to understand how bacteria trigger disease and use that knowledge to develop new antibiotics”.
In Italy, strong opposition persists against biotechnology, from gene editing on plants to cultured meat. How can we convince public opinion that biochemistry and biotechnology are not necessarily enemies of the environment? “Scientists need to point out how much better our life is today than it was a hundred years ago. We live longer and generally healthier thanks to advances in science and technology – warns Ramakrishnan. Scientists are at the forefront of detecting any problems, so we must communicate with the public to maintain trust in science.”
We have already forgotten the pandemic. But from his perspective, what are the chances of it happening again? “Given the highly interconnected world we live in, as well as large, densely populated cities, it is essentially inevitable that there will be another pandemic. So it is important to remember the lessons of the last one and be better prepared.” That a new pandemic is “essentially inevitable” should be better explained to politicians and public opinion. You wrote that the search for immortality is a mirage. Some biologists think that human life will reach a structural limit around 120 years at most, what do you think? “I agree: the natural limit of our species is no more than about 120 years – he points out – This does not mean that it is not theoretically possible to break that barrier, only that it will be extremely difficult and will require major advances in our understanding of aging and the ability to intervene in the aging process itself”.
‘In the anti-aging sector there is a tendency to use preliminary results and immediately talk about the prospects’
What is your opinion on alleged biochemical recipes for prolonging life, for example through blood transfusions, slowing down the shortening of telomeres, cellular reprogramming? “I believe that many of these areas, such as cellular reprogramming or the identification of factors in the blood that help alleviate the symptoms of aging, are promising. However – observes the Nobel Prize winner – in the anti-aging sector there is a tendency to use the preliminary results and immediately talk about the prospects. I believe that a lot of careful research is needed to first establish their long-term safety and effectiveness, before using these methods to address human aging.”
Is there anything truly immortal in biology? Some cells? Genes? “Because we have descended uninterruptedly, for several billion years, from living cells through our germ line, we as individuals die,” he explains, “that is to say, our bodies die, but the potential that allows life itself to continue persists. In this sense, life is immortal, even if the individual is not.” If cancer is due to the fact that natural selection becomes more permissive after reproductive age and allows the accumulation of genetic damage as we age, why do juvenile cancers show no signs of decreasing? “Cancer at an early age is due to a variety of reasons, including genetic propensity, but also simply the misfortune of being changed by environmental causes. However, many of our biological processes have been selected to prevent cancer early in life and, without them, our chances of contracting it before reaching adulthood would be even higher.”
‘Good quality healthcare is not dependent on income’
In an interview with CNN, he said that “the top 10% of income earners in the US and UK live more than a decade longer than the bottom 10%. If you look at the health span – the number of years of healthy life – the disparity is even greater. Poorer people live shorter, less healthy lives.” Don’t you think this situation is unacceptable and that we should establish, sooner or later, a global public health service? “I think a global health service will be very difficult to achieve as long as we have separate nations. But we should aim for societies where good quality health care is not dependent on income,” he replies. “And then, health care is only one component of our life expectancy. There are many others, such as nutrition, crime, poor environment, and so on.”
When we die, we stop breathing and lose consciousness, but most of our organs are still alive. Where does the input come from that signals the end of the individual at that fateful moment and not at another? “When a critical subsystem such as the core of the brain collapses irreversibly, that is what we consider death. At that moment, the individual can no longer function as a single being, even though its cells and entire organs are temporarily still alive,” concludes Ramakrishnan.
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