SFI's Annual Stanisław Ulam Lecture Series brings a brilliant and distinguished scientist to Santa Fe each year to deliver a series of public talks on cutting-edge topics, in honor of the late theoretical mathematician Stanisław Ulam. Ulam was a renowned mathematician long associated with Los Alamos National Laboratory who is highly regarded by the Santa Fe Institute's scientific community. Former SFI Vice President Mike Simmons said, "The enormous range of Ulam's scientific thought encompassed not only mathematics but also physics, computation, biology, and much else. He would have been very much at home in the present-day Santa Fe Institute, which was founded in the year of his death."
This year's series features SFI Fractal Faculty Professor, former President of the Royal Society, and Nobel Prize winner Venki Ramakrishnan, who will deliver two talks spanning his career in structural biology and molecular visualization.
Monday, August 25 — "My Adventures in the Ribosome: The Cellular Machine that Reads our Genes"
Ramakrishnan will provide a history of molecular visualization, as well as take us through his work at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, where his team determined the atomic structure of the 30S ribosomal subunit and its complexes with ligands and antibiotics.
Everyone is familiar with DNA, but by itself, DNA is just an inert blueprint for life. It is the ribosome — an enormous molecular machine made up of a million atoms — that makes DNA come to life, turning our genetic code into proteins and therefore into us.
He will talk about the ribosome (the "Gene Machine"), and how his team learned about its structure. He will also share some recent developments, including the development of cryoEM — a powerful technique used to determine the structure of three-dimensional structure of biological molecules at near-atomic resolution.
Tuesday, August 26 — "Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality”
The knowledge of aging and death has driven human culture, including our religions, ever since we became aware of our mortality. For much of our existence there was not much we could do about it. But over the past few decades, biology has made major advances in our understanding of the causes of aging, opening for the first time the possibility of intervening in the process. At the same time, the combination of longer lives and reduced fertility rates means that many societies are faced with an aging population. This has led to large investments in aging research from governments and private industry funded largely by tech billionaires, resulting in both real advances and a large amount of hype.
In this talk, Venki Ramakrishnan will discuss some of the key findings about why and how we age and die and prospects for the future. He will also explore the possible consequences of societies with extremely long-lived populations.
Ramakrishnan will be on hand to sign copies of his 2024 book of the same title at 6:30 pm in the Lensic Lobby.
Reserve your free tickets to these events via the Lensic Performing Arts Center's box office. This discussion will also be streamed live via SFI's YouTube channel, and recorded for future viewing.
The 2025 Santa Fe Institute Community Lecture Series is free to attend thanks to generous sponsorship by the McKinnon Family Foundation, with additional support from the Santa Fe Reporter, and the Lensic Performing Arts Center.
More about our 30th Ulam Speaker:
Venki Ramakrishnan is on the scientific staff of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. He has a long-standing interest in the structural basis of protein synthesis in the cell, which involves translation of genetic information on mRNA by the ribosome. In 2000, his laboratory determined the atomic structure of the 30S ribosomal subunit and its complexes with ligands and antibiotics. This work has led to insights into how the ribosome “reads” the genetic code, as well as into how many antibiotics inhibit the ribosome. In the last twenty years, Ramakrishan’s lab has determined the high-resolution snapshots of the entire ribosome at various stages along the translational pathway, which has led to insights into its detailed mechanism. More recently his laboratory has been applying cryoelectron microscopy to study ribosomes from higher organisms and mitochondria, as well as the regulation of translation. For his work, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2003, a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2004, and shared the 2009 Nobel prize in Chemistry.
In addition to his research on ribosomes, Ramakrishnan was president of the Royal Society from 2015-2020, during which time he developed an interest in broader issues such as science policy and public engagement. He is the author of Gene Machine, a frank popular memoir about the race for the structure of the ribosome that discusses both the science behind the discovery and the sociology and personalities involved. In 2024, Ramakrishnan published Why We Perish: The New Science of Aging, and the Quest for Immortality.