(Contributed By Ratnakar Sadasyula)
Dr. Yellapragada Subbarao, the person whom most Telugu people should rightly be proud of. The man who made some of the most significant discoveries in field of medicine, but sadly never got his due. Here are some facts about a great personality, whom every Telugu person must know about and also share with others.
1) He was born on the same date as Swami Vivekananda in Bhimavaram, in 1895, around the same time, Swamiji was spreading the message of Hinduism in the West.
2) He was a staunch nationalist, wore Khadi surgical dress in response to Gandhiji's call. Probably the reason why he was given the lesser LMS degree instead of MBBS and had to settle for a lecturer's post.
3) He was allowed admission to Harvard Medical School as a “physician” and his qualifications were cited as a “chemist”. During the 1940's, these were the only 2 professions, which Indians were allowed to work in US. Till then the scientific world was barred for Non Whites.
4) During WWII, Subbarow, had to carry an Alien Registration card around, report his address to every 3 months in Dept of Justice, Washington. In fact when Subbarow, was working on supervision of processing of blood albumin for supply to Navy, he had to get a special clearance in 1942.
5) Even at Harvard, Subbarow, got a position only as a junior faculty member after he finished his diploma there. But it was there along with Cyrus Fiske, that he made one of the most significant discoveries of our times.
6) Along along with Fiske, who discovered phosphocreatine and adenosine triphosphate (ATP), two chemicals in our body, that store energy. .The Fiske-SubbaRow method of estimating phosphorous is used to date by most biologists around the world.
7) When Harvard denied him a regular faculty position, Subbarow, left for Lederle Laboratories( now a part of Wyeth, owned by Pfizer) in 1940, where he did some of his most significant work.
8) His major achievement was discovery of polymyxin widely used even today in cattle-feed and aureomycin, the first of the various tetracyline antibiotics which all of us used at one time or other. The tetracyline antibiotics played a major role in saving millions of patients, all over the world during the last century..
9) One of the most important anti cancer drugs methotrexate was synthesized again by Subbarow. This drug is primarily used for allievating suffering from Burkitt’s Lymphoma, and was one of the very first cancer chemotherapy agents.
10) During his tenure at Lederle, as Director of Research, another important discovery Subbarow made was on Hetrazan the cure for Filariasis. Subbarow’s discovery of Hetrazan, went a long way in combating this disease, which now has been adopted by WHO as a key element of it’s campaign against elephantiasis.
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