biology

N. Gautham

N. Gautham is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand N. Gautham rather than just read about it. In short: Namasivayam Gautham (born 1955) is a retired Professor Emeritus at the Centre of Advance Study in Crystallography and Biophysics, University of Madras. He is known for his work on DNA Crystallography, protein structure prediction and molecular docking.

Key takeaways

N. Gautham belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect N. Gautham to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of N. Gautham from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Namasivayam Gautham (born 1955) is a retired Professor Emeritus at the Centre of Advance Study in Crystallography and Biophysics, University of Madras. He is known for his work on DNA Crystallography, protein structure prediction and molecular docking.

Education In 1975, Gautham obtained his BSc degree in physics from the Madras Christian College, University of Madras. Later, in 1979 he completed his Master of Science degree in physics from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. He was awarded a PhD in 1983 for research on the Structural biology of isopropylidene nucleoside derivatives under the supervision of Mysore A. Viswamitra.

Career and research Gautham worked as a Research associate at the Indian Institute of Science. Following his postdoctoral research, he was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Madras in 1985. He was promoted to a full Professor in 1997. He continued to work at the University of Madras until his retirement in 2016. Gautham used DNA Crystallography to study the impact of metal ions on the transition of right-handed B-DNA to left-handed Z-DNA. as well as the self assembly of DNA decameric sequences into a four-way Holliday junction In the area of structural bioinformatics, Gautham developed a novel Ab initio computational method using Mutually Orthogonal Latin squares (MOLS) - a technique employed in the area of experimental design - to efficiently sample the conformational space of polypeptides and proteins in order to identify global minimum energy conformations. Later, his laboratory applied the MOLS technique to the problem of molecular docking and produced an open source software package called MOLS. Gautham has written two textbooks in the field of Biophysics and Bioinformatics. He holds two patents for the development of computational methods for building optimal models of 3-dimensional molecular structures particularly related to peptides and proteins. Gautham's research has been funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), the Department of Biotechnology and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.

Awards and honours Gautham was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India (FNASc), India in 2007. He was awarded the BOYSCAST Fellowship from DST, India in 1990. He received the Martin Foster Gold Medal in 1983 for Best Thesis in the Division of Physics and Mathematics from the Indian Institute of Science.

See also List of protein-ligand docking software

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with N. Gautham

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what N. Gautham claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to N. Gautham before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about N. Gautham ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of N. Gautham

In research: N. Gautham appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses N. Gautham in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: N. Gautham is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1955 births, 20th-century Indian biologists, Fellows of the National Academy of Sciences, India, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for N. Gautham outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study N. Gautham in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what N. Gautham means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain N. Gautham out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is N. Gautham in simple terms?

Why does N. Gautham matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study N. Gautham?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on N. Gautham.