Dr. Yellapragada Subbarow

It is no secret that the names of scientists who have not received adequate recognition for their groundbreaking discoveries may be rather hard to list, simply because of their relative obscurity from the public eye. A dedicated and deeper look, however, often reveals a surprisingly large group of scientists whose genius and visionary approaches helped shape modern disciplines, yet for them awards and recognition remained elusive.

A statement that is nearly ubiquitous in the foundational chapters of Biology textbooks across several levels (although followed by varying degrees of descriptivity) is - “ATP is the energy currency of the cell.” The statement has become so deeply ingrained in our memories that we fail to step back and ask where the evidence for this originally came from. A logical first step would be to rack our brains for the name of some “famous”, Nobel Prize winning scientist, for a discovery of this magnitude surely deserves nothing less. Yet (and rather sadly) this approach turns up nothing. Instead, one must turn their attentions to the contributions of a truly elusive genius of the 20th century, Yellapragada Subbarow.

The rather fascinating story of Yellapragada Subbarow begins with his birth on 12th January, 1895, in Bhimavaram, presently in Andhra Pradesh. His childhood was certainly eventful, to put it mildly. Since his family was deeply affected by poverty, one of his childhood goals was to attain great riches as a trader, and his chosen strategy was to sell bananas to the large number of pilgrims frequenting Varanasi. Subbarow secretly left home, but was promptly found, brought back, and quite understandably supervised more closely. A very interesting series of events, including an attempt at becoming an ascetic (thwarted by his mother), being denied a well deserved MBBS degree at Madras Christian College and instead being awarded the less recognised Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery (LMS, he incurred the displeasure of his surgery professor by wearing khadi surgical dresses upon the insistence of Mahatma Gandhi to boycott British goods), and a position of lectureship at Madras Ayurvedic College, finally culminated in Subbarow leaving India to study at Harvard.

His scientific career in the US was nothing less than extraordinary. One of his first achievements was the co-discovery of the famous “Fiske-Subbarow” method, which is used to estimate phosphorus levels in body fluid and tissue samples. He then went on (along with his advisor, Cyrus Fiske) to make the seminal discovery of the role of ATP as an energy provider for muscular contractions, which ultimately played a huge role in the more complete picture of ATP we see in textbooks today. Post Harvard, Subbarow joined Lederle Laboratories (an interesting and rather sad story as to why Subbarow left Harvard without becoming a faculty member can be found in further reading - 1) . At Lederle, he continued with his path breaking work, heading a team which developed a method to synthesise vitamin B9 (Folic Acid). He also synthesized the anti-cancer drug methotrexate, which remains an essential drug to this day. The drug molecules he contributed to synthesizing (difficult to list) have helped save countless lives over the years.

A telling quote about the scope and importance of his work comes from Doron K. Antim, who in a 1950 edition of the magazine Agrosy wrote - “You've probably never heard of Dr. Yellapragada Subbarao. Yet because he lived, you may be alive and are well today. Because he lived, you may live longer." His biographer Dr. S. P. K. Gupta remarks - “ He was quite determined that the time allotted to him on earth should be completely devoted to finding cures for ailments that plagued mankind.”

Further reading is encouraged to get a better picture of this simple, elusive, often overlooked, and yet deeply profound mind of 20th century medicine, whose impact will no doubt be felt for years to come!