Dr. Yellapragada Subbarow

Dr. Yellapragada Subbarow was born in the city of Bhimavaram in India in 1895. He studied medicine at the Madras Medical College. In 1922 he moved to Boston where he earned his diploma from the Harvard school of tropical medicine.

He joined the lab of Dr. Cyrus Fiske for his PhD work. His first major scientific breakthrough came when he helped develop a colorimetric assay to measure phosphorus in biological tissues in 1925.

Fiske and Subbarow then used this test to demonstrate that phosphocreatine existed in muscle and could be used as an energy source. https://bit.ly/2MB5twY This led to their seminal paper describing the isolation and characterization of ATP. https://bit.ly/2pCvRgT in 1929

After earning his PhD in 1930, Dr. SubbaRow was denied a faculty position @Harvard . So, instead he became the associate director of research at Lederle Laboratories (now @pfizer ). Where he developed a method of folic acid synthesis in 1945. https://bit.ly/33UIym6

He then led the company’s effort to identify antibiotics that resulted in the discovery of aureomycin (tetracycline) the first broad-spectrum antibiotic. He also laid the foundations for the isolation of vitamin B12. He also worked with Sydney Farber to develop Methotrexate.