1. Yellapragada Subbarow subsequently discovered folic acid as a cure for tropical sprue.
14 Facts About Yellapragada Subbarow
1. 2.
Yellapragada Subbarow discovered methotrexate, a chemotherapy drug still used today and used for rheumatoid arthritis, and diethylcarbamazine, the only effective drug for treating filariasis.
3.
Yellapragada Subbarow is credited with the first synthesis of the chemical compounds folic acid and methotrexate.
4.
Yellapragada Subbarow was born in a Telugu Brahmin family in Bhimavaram, Madras Presidency, now in West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh in India.
5.
Yellapragada Subbarow passed through a traumatic period in his schooling at Rajahmundry and eventually matriculated in his third attempt from the Hindu High School, Madras.
6.
Yellapragada Subbarow passed the Intermediate Examination from the Presidency College and entered the Madras Medical College where his education was supported by friends and Kasturi Suryanarayana Murthy, whose daughter he later married.
7.
Yellapragada Subbarow tried to enter the Madras Medical Service without success.
8.
Yellapragada Subbarow then took up a job as lecturer in anatomy at Dr Lakshmipathi's Ayurvedic College at Madras.
9.
Yellapragada Subbarow was fascinated by the healing powers of Ayurvedic medicines and began to engage in research to put Ayurveda on a modern footing.
10.
The promise of support from Malladi Satyalingam Naicker Charities in Kakinada, and financial assistance raised by his father-in-law, enabled Yellapragada Subbarow to proceed to the US He arrived in Boston on 26 October 1922.
11.
Yellapragada Subbarow discovered the role of phosphocreatine and adenosine triphosphate in muscular activity, which earned him an entry into biochemistry textbooks in the 1930s.
12.
Yellapragada Subbarow joined Lederle Laboratories, a division of American Cyanamid, after he failed to gain a regular faculty position at Harvard.
13.
Yellapragada Subbarow discovered the basis for the anthelmintic diethylcarbamazine, which was later recommended by the World Health Organization as a treatment for filariasis.
14.
Yellapragada Subbarow died on 8 August 1948 in New York due to cardiac arrest.