Yellapragada SubbaRow (12 January 1895 – 8 August 1948)
"Science simply prolongs life, but religion deepens it." The man who said those words was a self-effacing Indian bio-chemist whose discoveries should entitle him to be known as the Father of Chemotherapy.
That such a brilliant insightful man was not awarded the Noble Prize for his achievements speaks volumes about the ignoble politics that ignores the contributions made by Indian scientists. Subbarao's colleague, George Hitchings said, "Some of the nucleotides isolated by Subbarao had to be rediscovered years later by other workers because Fiske, apparently out of jealousy, did not let Subbarao's contributions see the light of the day."
This was a man of principles, raised during the period when Indians were striving to free themselves from foreign rule and fighting adverse conditions. His early education was influenced by the values of Swami Vivekanda and the Ramakrishna Mission, to seek the spiritual by serving humanity.
Following Gandhi's call to boycott British goods he started wearing khadi [homespun]surgical uniform to the displeasure of M. C. Bradfield, his English surgery professor who held him back from becoming a medical doctor,despite his brilliant exam results. He took up a lecturing job in an Ayurvedic College [Indian traditional medicine] and began to research the healing properties of Ayurvedic medicines. But realising that modern diseases needed more synthetic and scientific interventions, he managed through family and community support to travel to the USA in 1922, where his seminal role in Harvard and pharmeceutical industry led to discoveries in cluding the first cancer chemotherapy agent, which is still in clinical use.
Today millions live longer and have more healthy lives because of folic acid vitamin, tetracycline antibiotics, and anti-filarial and anti‑cancer drugs developed under the research direction of this noble biochemist whose religion was serving humanity through science.
