Yellapragada Subbarov

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Yellapragada Subbarov

Yellapragada Subbarow (born January 12, 1895 in Bhimavaram , then presidency Madras , British India , now Andhra Pradesh ; † August 8, 1948 in New York City ) was an Indian biochemist who played a role in the development of broad spectrum antibiotics after World War II and is known for developing methotrexate .

Life

Subbarow was born in the small coastal town of Bhimavaram in what was then British India and originally wanted to go to the Ramakrishna mission , but was changed to study medicine. Subbarow studied at Madras Medical School, but aroused the displeasure of his surgery professor MC Bradfield when he appeared as a staunch supporter of Mohandas Gandhi in khadi clothing instead of surgical clothing. Bradfield therefore downgraded his grades. He tried unsuccessfully to be employed in the medical service of Madras and instead taught at an Ayurveda college (Lakshmipathi's Ayurvedic College) in Madras - he himself was very interested in traditional Indian medicine, with which he treated and healed his tropical sprue . In addition, two of his brothers had died of tropical diseases, which motivated him to study medicine. Subbarow went to the United States in 1922, where he studied at Harvard Medical School and received his doctorate. At Harvard, after graduating in 1924, he worked with Cyrus Hartwell Fiske in the biochemistry department on the determination of the phosphorus content in tissues and body fluids (development of the Fiske-Subbarow method, a colorimetric method for estimating the phosphorus content in blood and urine) and recognized its importance of ATP and phosphocreatine for muscle activity. To finance his studies (his Indian degrees were not recognized in Boston), he initially worked as a night watchman at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital . After completing his doctorate, after he did not get a regular position at Harvard, he went to the Lederle Laboratories in New York, which belonged to the American Cyanamid company, as research director in 1940. In 1948 he died in his sleep.

Subbarow isolated and synthesized folic acid (from liver and a bacterial source) and vitamin B12 . It eventually played a role in the therapy of tropical sprue, a disease from which Subbarov himself suffered and a brother died. It was here that he collaborated with the doctor Sidney Farber in the discovery of the first folic acid antagonists and their development as a chemotherapeutic agent against cancer. He first synthesized aminopterin with the aim of using it as a folic acid antagonist for leukemia patients (1947). It had a strong anti-cancer effect on them, and the methotrexate developed afterwards also worked on other types of cancer.

Other drugs that he developed were hetrazane for worm diseases such as filariasis . The first tetracycline was also developed in his laboratory ( Chlortetracycline by Benjamin Duggar 1945). At that time, the US Army called for soil samples to be collected from around the world for testing for antibiotics from fungi in order to supplement the previously known antibiotics penicillin and streptomycin . The screening also took place in the Lederle Labs, and under his direction other antibiotics such as aureomycin and polymyxin were also found .

Shortly before his death, after a long effort, he had also acquired US citizenship.

literature

  • SPK Gupta, S. Bansal, V. Ramesh: Remembering Yellapragada Subbarow, International Journal of Dermatology, Volume 52, 2013, pp. 882-886.
  • SPK Gupta: The dilemma of a fame-hunter, Reflections on Yellapragada Subbarow centenary, Current Science, Volume 68, January 1995, pp. 110-113.
  • PM Bhargava: Dr. Yellapragada SubbaRow (1895-1948). He Transformed Science; Changed lives. Journal, Indian Academy of Clinical Medicine, January – June 2001 p. 96-100.
  • P. Dashatwar: Dr. Yellapragada Subbarow (1895-1948), Journal of the Association of Physicians of India, Volume 63, March 2015

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CH Fiske, Y. Subbarow: The colorimetric determination of phosphorus . In: Journal of Biological Chemistry . tape 66 , 1925, pp. 375-400 (English, pdf ).
  2. ↑ D. Lowe, Das Chemiebuch, Librero 2017, p. 344
personal data
SURNAME Subbarow, Yellapragada
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Bhimavaram , Madras Presidency , British India
DATE OF DEATH August 8, 1948
Place of death New York City