Gobind Khorana was a Biochemistry professor at UBC in the 1950’s. He was an expert on chemical synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids. When he was working with Marshall W. Nirenberg at the University of Wisconsin, their research uncovered how DNA’s genetic code determines protein synthesis – which dictates how cell functions. That discovery earned the two of them the 1968 Nobel Prize in Phsysiology or Medicine “for their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis.”