He moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, with his family in 1952 after accepting a position with the British Columbia Research Council at University of British Columbia. Khorana was excited by the prospect of starting his own lab, a colleague later recalled. His mentor later said that the Council had few facilities at the time but gave the researcher "all the freedom in the world". His work in British Columbia was on "nucleic acids and synthesis of many important biomolecules" according to the American Chemical Society.