In celebration of its upcoming fifth anniversary, the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) invites Venki Ramakrishnan, President of the Royal Society to deliver a special talk entitled "Antibiotics and the Cell's Protein Factory" at Seoul National University on October 28, 2016. The special lecture is open to the public.

President Ramakrishnan shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for discovering the precise structure of ribosomes - the molecular machines that manufacture proteins inside all living cells. He was elected to one of the most prestigious positions in British science in December 2015, succeeding his predecessor Sir Paul Nurse. President Ramakrishnan will lead the Royal Society for five years until November 2020.

Aside from the special talk, IBS president will meet with President Ramakrishnan to discuss ways of improving collaborations between IBS and the Royal Society. The two institutions have strengthened ties since the conclusion of their 2013 MOU, followed by two rounds of the IBS-Royal Society Conference, firstly in 2014 in Korea and last year in the U.K. The third conference is expected to take place in Korea in the first half of 2017.

IBS President, Doochul Kim noted, "By expanding our collaboration with the Royal Society, IBS will seek to find ways to advance Korean basic science as well as its growth to become a world-leading basic science institution."

Founded in 1660, the Royal Society is a learned society for science and is one of the most prestigious and possibly the oldest such society still in existence. The Fellowship of the Royal Society is made up of the most eminent scientists, engineers and technologists working within the UK and the Commonwealth. Past Fellows and Foreign Members have included Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.