Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, the man death. Although it does not look like a good nickname, it is: Ramakrishnan is one of the most eminent scientists in the world in the fields of structural biology and cellular processes linked to aging and death. He received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2009 for its discovery of the structure of the ribosome, a crucial cellular machine responsible for the expression of genes.
In addition to being a leading researcher, Ramakrishnan is also a prolific author. After the huge success of The gene machineA memory in which he tells his human and scientific journey, he published the powerful Why we dieA book – as its name suggests – has been dedicated precisely to the illustration of the dynamics which regulates aging and which, gradually and inexorably, leads to death.
Ramakrishnan was recently in Italy, Milan, where he gave a conference during the second edition of Milan Longevity Summit, the most important Italian event dedicated to longevity And psycho-physical well-being, organized by BrainCircle Italia. It was an opportunity to meet him and ask him a few questions. This interview has been modified for more clarity and length.
Cars: Professor Ramakrishnan, the crucial question of your book is Why we die. But what is death?
Venki Ramakrishnan: By death, we mean the irreversible loss of the ability to function as a coherent individual. It is the result of the failure of a system or a critical device, for example, the heart, the brain, the lungs or renal failure. In this sense, there is an apparent paradox: when our organism, as a whole, is alive, millions of cells in us constantly die and that we do not even do it. On the other hand, at the time of death, most cells in our body are still alive, and whole organs still work and can be given to people with transplantation. But at this stage, the body has lost the ability to operate as a whole. In this sense, it is therefore important to distinguish between cell death and the death of the individual.
Speaking of death and aging, you say in your last book that you “wanted to offer an objective look at our current understanding of the two phenomena”. What was the greatest surprise or the most deeply retained belief that you had to reconsider by writing and looking for this work?
There have been several surprises, in fact. The first is that death, contrary to what one might think, is not programmed by our genes. The evolution does not care how long we live, but simply selects the ability to transmit our genes, a process called “fitness” in evolutionary biology. Thus, the selected features are those which help us to survive childhood and to reproduce. And it is these features, later in life, which cause aging and decline.
Another curious observation was the fact that aging is not simply due to wear on cells. Wear occurs constantly in all living things, but different species have a very different lifespan. Instead, the lifespan is the result of a balance between the expenses of the resources necessary to maintain the body that works and repair it and those necessary to make it grow, mature and keep it healthy until it reproduces and nourishes offspring.
