Nobel laureate Ramakrishnan to get knighthood

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, India-born U.S. citizen whose work in molecular biology won him the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry, will be knighted in UK, media reports said.

Ramakrishnan, or Venky as he is popularly known, is a biologist based at the Medical Research Council's Molecular Biology Laboratories in Cambridge,

He has been honoured "for services to molecular biology" in the New Year Honours List 2012, according to an official announcement.

In a statement to the Press Trust of India, he said: "In the current debate about immigration, it is worth noting that this award is yet another example of the numerous contributions that immigrants make to British society."

Born in 1952 in the temple town of Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu, Ramakrishnan earned his B.Sc. in Physics from MS University in Baroda, Gujarat and later migrated to the US to continue his studies. He earned his Ph.D in Physics from Ohio University, his profile on the Times of India website says.

In 2009, he and two others shared the Nobel for their work on the structure and function of the ribosome.

In 2010, Ramakrishnan was awarded the Padma Vibhusan, nation's second highest civilian honour.