In memoriam of Narayanaswamy Srinivasan (1962–2021)

Abstract

The devastating, unexpected news of Prof. Narayanaswamy Srinivasan, a world-renowned pioneer in structural computational biology, genomics, and biophysics, passing away on September 3, 2021, spread among the international scientific community within hours. We mourn not only the loss of a super-engaged, creative scientist with a sharp mind but also the loss of a teacher for numerous PhD students and postdocs who made a career after their time with him and of an influential voice in the Indian academic system always defending the importance and the needs of science and its benefits for society. N. Srinivasan was an unusual man. He had the extraordinary gift to win people over, to see and to emphasize the common interest, to let his colleagues feel appreciated and convenient with him. This is not a little achievement in the generally very competitive scientific community that is overpopulated with very personal success-oriented or borderline personalities (maybe, as a side effect of the constant demand for creativity). For his wide, international circle of close friends and colleagues, he was Srini, the sanguine, friendly smiling scientist with a neverending interest in scientific discovery. For those who encountered him first at later stages of his life, he was always seen together with his lovely life companion Mini (Prof. Ramanathan Sowdhamini, currently at NCBS, Bangalore). Mini and Srini were the epitome of a scientific couple, both being impactful in their own right but most effective together. His family was very important to him. His joy did not know any bounds when, in 1996, his daughter Jayashree (currently studying biotechnology) was born. Srini was often preoccupied in being social with his friends and colleagues and playful (yes, also playing computer games or enjoying watching cricket games, sometimes, much to the annoyance of his fiancé!). He liked to share breakfast, typically starting at 8 a.m., with guests, all the time gossiping away on the lives, trials, and tribulations of acquaintances, some scientific discovery, or usually him excitedly discussing a recent discovery made in his lab. This routine had a very funny ending, which was usually around 9 a.m., when he would suddenly look at his watch with horror and with that warm smile admonish himself for leaving too late and rush off to catch the bus that would ferry him to his office at the Indian Institute of Science. Narayanaswamy Srinivasan was born on April 1, 1962 (at Government Kasturba Gandhi Hospital for Women and Children in Triplicane, Chennai/Tamil Nadu) to late Mr. K. Narayanaswamy and Ms. N. Jayalakshmi as the youngest child to a family of eight children. Maybe, being born on April Fools' Day had forever inserted the sense for humor and joke into him. As a young boy, Srinivasan was very sports-oriented and enjoyed playing cricket. His high schooling was in Rajah Muthiah Higher Secondary School (in Raja Annamalai Puram, Chennai) during the years 1976–1979. He earned his Bachelor's degree in Physics (1979–1982) at Jain College, Chennai. He was known to spend long hours tutoring mathematics to younger students. The Biophysics Department of Madras University granted him the Master's degree (1982–1984). The Madras School and Biophysics Department are much renowned as the birthplace of many works of late Prof. G.N. Ramachandran (GNR). To make matters follow, Srinivasan joined late Prof. C. Ramakrishnan's (CR) laboratory at the Molecular Biophysics Unit (MBU) of Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, in 1984. Also, during his PhD, he successfully collaborated with Prof. Padmanabhan Balaram, a noted biochemist and Padma Bhushan award recipient. In 1991, he was awarded the PhD for his thesis “Conformational studies on globular proteins: Data analysis”. To note, CR, as he is fondly called, had worked on the Ramachandran plot project together with GNR. Thus, Srinivasan has been brought up in this famous legacy of genuinely Indian-born science. He was always highly passionate and excited about his recent works on revisiting the Ramachandran map as well as about the collaboration with CR, his PhD guru. Whereas the backbone dihedral angle calculations were done manually in the early work, it was redone using computers also accounting for possible deviations from ideal bond length and bond angle parameters of the peptide unit. Such a reexamination provided a stereochemical rationale, as conceptualized by Srinivasan, for why certain regions of the Ramachandran map areas albeit “disallowed,” using ideal internal parameters, are actually tolerated in protein structures. Srinivasan's joy knew no bounds when this work of four generations—GNR, CR, N. Srinivasan, and his students' and coworkers' publications—was accepted in reputed journals and gained international attention. His postdoctoral period was very intensive. After having been a senior research fellow at IISc (in the group of Prof. Balaram) for 10 months, he moved to Tom Blundell's lab at Birkbeck College London (1991–1994). Together with Mini, Srini spent most of the time, even on weekends, in the lab. Srini used to engage in conversation with Prof. Tom Blundell on new and newer projects. Tom started getting quite worried if the couple may not be having enough relaxing time and he had secret ploys to get them walk along the banks of Thames River and listen to opera music in theaters. For the following 2 years, N. Srinivasan accepted an offer from Mike Waterfield at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in London. From 1996 to 1998, he was reunited with Tom Blundell who had moved to the Department of Biochemistry of Cambridge University. Srinivasan left Received: 18 November 2021 Accepted: 22 November 2021