Google honours Har Gobind Khorana: 6 things you need to know about the man who unveiled the secrets of DNA

In the year 1968, Har Gobind Khorana, along with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovering the order of nucleotides in DNA determines which amino acids (the fundamental building blocks of proteins) are built. Nucleotides, the subunits of DNA and RNA, are made out of nitrogen. There are four types of nucleotides in DNA and RNA, and the order in which they are placed determines the structure of the double helix – the shape that makes up each of our DNA molecules.

Here are five things you need to know about the scientist

- He was born in a small village in Raipur. His father – one of the only literate people in the village – taught his children how to read and write. Har Gobind was the youngest of five children

- Khorana received his Master’s degree in 1945 from Punjab University in Lahore

- In 1948, he completed his PhD from the University of Liverpool

- According to his biography, he was married to Swiss national Esther Elizabeth Sibler. Khorana's biography praised Sibler for bringing a "consistent sense of purpose ... at a time when he felt out of place everywhere and at home nowhere".

- He was granted American citizenship in 1966, and won the Nobel Prize two years later

- He died in 2011.