The scientist at the center of the story was G. N. Ramachandran, working with colleague Gopinath Kartha at the University of Madras. Collagen from a kangaroo’s tail supplied material for their investigation, but the structure emerged from a collaborative, multi-year effort combining X-ray diffraction with chemical reasoning—not from one specimen or one person working alone.
Who was G. N. Ramachandran?
Gopalasamudram Narayana Ramachandran (1922–2001), usually known as G. N. Ramachandran or GNR, was an Indian scientist whose work helped establish the molecular structure of collagen. He moved to the University of Madras in 1952. A memorial in Protein Science traces his growing interest in biological macromolecules to scientific discussions with J. D. Bernal during Bernal’s visit.
Ramachandran’s collagen work was carried out with Gopinath Kartha. A memorial in Protein Science credits both men with proposing and publishing the structure; a Nature obituary places the achievement in Ramachandran’s productive Madras period. Read the memorial in Protein Science and the Nature obituary.
What did kangaroo-tail collagen contribute?
A 2017 historical account describes Ramachandran and colleagues working with purified marsupial collagen, including collagen from a kangaroo’s tail tendon, and examining X-ray diffraction images. Those images provided evidence about the material’s repeating structure. They did not, by themselves, reveal a complete molecular model: the researchers had to interpret the diffraction evidence alongside what was known about collagen’s composition.
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One important clue was glycine. It makes up one-third of collagen’s amino-acid residues, a proportion that helped motivate the idea that collagen could contain three chains arranged together. The sample and the chemical pattern mattered in combination; the kangaroo-tail detail is memorable, but it should not obscure the team’s broader evidence and reasoning. Vijaysree Venkatraman’s 2017 historical feature recounts the investigation.
How the collagen model changed between 1954 and 1955
The team’s proposal developed over two publications. The first set out a prototype; the later paper refined how the chains were arranged.
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| Publication | Proposed arrangement | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| August 7, 1954, Nature | Three helical chains, initially conceived as separate and set in a hexagonal array. | The prototype proposal established the triple-chain idea. |
| September 1955, Nature | A “coiled-coil” model, with the three chains intertwined. | The arrangement was refined into an interwoven structure. |
The 1955 proposal drew a nuanced response from Francis Crick in a November 1955 Nature discussion. As quoted in Venkatraman’s historical feature, Crick wrote: “Very recently Ramachandran and Kartha have made an important contribution by proposing a coiled-coil structure of collagen. We believe this idea to be basically correct but the actual structure suggested by them to be wrong.” The response captures both the significance of their contribution and the fact that the model was debated and refined rather than accepted as a final answer immediately.
Why this was a collaborative contribution, not a single-sample discovery
The familiar shorthand—that Ramachandran discovered collagen’s structure from a kangaroo’s tail—compresses a group effort into a dramatic image. The historical account points to purified collagen and X-ray diffraction, while the Protein Science memorial emphasizes Kartha’s role and the glycine clue. Together, these details show how the team connected experimental evidence to a structural hypothesis and developed it over successive papers.
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The chronology is also clear in these accounts: the prototype appeared in 1954 and the coiled-coil refinement in 1955. CSIR-Central Leather Research Institute’s milestones page lists 1985 in connection with the triple-helical collagen structure, which conflicts with that publication record; it should not be used as the discovery date. See CSIR-CLRI’s milestones page.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How the collagen work differs from the Ramachandran Map
Ramachandran’s name is also attached to a separate landmark in structural biology. He calculated the Ramachandran Map in 1962; it was published in the Journal of Molecular Biology in 1963. The map assesses which conformations of a polypeptide chain are allowed, and it became a widely used tool for analyzing protein structures. It followed the collagen papers, but it was not the collagen model itself. The Protein Science memorial discusses both achievements.
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