Dr. Subhas Mukerji: India's forgotten hero

Considered as the most prestigious award in science, the Nobel Prize for the year 2010 was awarded to Prof. Robert Edward for his pioneering work on In-Vitro Fertilization (a technique that helped many with infertility issues) through which Louise Brown was born in July, 1978. I read the article in a reputed magazine in 2010 while travelling to my home. In the article, a very short mention of Dr. Subhas Mukerji (aka Dr. Subhas Mukhopadhyay) struck my sense and I decided to go through his life upon reaching home. Though I collected a lot of his life events through various sources, I could never collate the life of this “forgotten hero” at a place.

 

          I am not sure where to begin with, but will start from start. Dr. Subhas Mukerji was born in Hazaribagh district in erstwhile state of Bihar (now Jharkhand, India) on 16^th January 1931. He completed his MBBS from National Medical College, Calcutta (now Kolkata). Having interest in research, he went on to earn a D. Phil in reproductive physiology from Calcutta University under the supervision of Prof. Sachidananda Banerjee. He obtained another PhD in reproductive endocrinology from University of Edinburgh, UK (MRC Clinical Endocrinology Research Unit). After his research stint at UK, Dr. Mukerji returned to India in 1967 and worked in NRS Medical College Kolkata. Continuing his research interest, he teamed up with Dr. Sunit Mukherji (a cryobiologist) and Dr. Saroj Kanti Bhattacharya (a gynaecologist) to initiate the IVF research in India. The team was working on a possibility of IVF for a patient who had damaged fallopian tube.

          The dedication of Dr. Subhas Mukerji and team led India to a historic moment on October 3, 1978 when the birth of India’s first and world’s second “test-tube baby” was announced. The girl was named Durga. The announcement came just 67 days after the birth of world’s first test-tube baby named Louise Brown. Prof. Robert Edward was later bestowed with Nobel Prize in Medicine/Physiology for the year 2010. The striking feature of Dr. Subhas Mukerji’s research was not only a success with IVF but that he successfully cryopreserved an eight-celled embryo for 53 days and there was that successful implantation with the thawed embryo. Dr. Subhas Mukerji was also the first to use human menopausal gonadotropin (hMG) to stimulate ovary for the egg production in the treatment protocol. In this regard, Dr. Mukerji is considered far ahead of his time to use ovarian stimulation protocol before any other scientists thought of achieving that. Few even are of opinion that the technique Dr. Mukerji used was far better than that applied by Prof. Edward (in the sense that laparoscopic isolation of eggs was difficult compared to ovulation stimulation). Dr. Subhas Mukerji is considered “first” in many aspects (Prof. Edward did not use these techniques) such as:

§  Use of human menopausal gonadotropins for induction of ovulation

§  Use of transvaginal egg retrieval

§  Cryopreservation of viable embryos

§ Transplantation of cryopreserved embryo in the uterus that resulted in India’s first and world’s second IVF child

The scientific excellence of Dr. Mukerji resulted in the birth of a child who he named “Durga” (official name Kanupriya Agarwal) on October 3^rd, 1978.

 

The tragedy

Approximately a decade ago, Beryl Benderly published an eye-opening short article on this incident in Science magazine blog and termed it as “Indian Crab-Syndrome”. Crab-syndrome, in short, is a feeling that if I can’t have it, neither can you.

Doubting the claims made by Dr. Subhas Mukerji, the then government of West Bengal constituted an “expert committee” to verify the scientific claims. Surprisingly, the committee consisted of people who had no idea of that field of research. The committee was headed by a professor of radiophysics and consisted of a gynaecologist, a physiologist, and a neurophysiologist. They were far from knowing the details of IVF at that time but were holding an enquiry in the subject of reproductive technology. The final verdict of the committee resulted in denouncement of the extraordinary work done by Dr. Mukerji. The work, irrespective of the resistance encountered, was already presented to some extent in various conferences and symposiums such as 5^th International Congress on Hormonal Steroids (New Delhi, 1978), public lecture at Sir Gangaram Hospital New Delhi, interviewed by Prof. B. B. Saxena and Prof. G. P. Talwar that was aired on Delhi Doordarshan (November 1978), Satellite Symposium of 5^th International Congress on Hormonal Steroids at Varanasi, and even at Indian Science Congress (Hyderabad, 1979). Dr. Subhas Mukerji was also awarded a “MANPATRA” as a recognition towards his excellent work. But the final verdict of the “expert committee” resulted in prohibiting him to present his work in a conference in Japan in 1979. He was further prohibited to attend any conferences and meetings. Dr. Subhas Mukerji suffered a heart attack due to this decision. The final blow came when he was transferred to the Regional Institute of Opthalmology (on June 5, 1981) to teach electrophysiology which was not at all his field of work. This was supposedly done to prevent him from carrying out any further research. Not able to cope with such humiliation and distress, Dr. Subhas Mukerji committed suicide on July 19, 1981.

A few examples that clearly indicates that Dr. Mukerji was far ahead of his time can be found from the claims that were made after his suicide. It is reported that it was only in and after 1981 that scientists started ovarian stimulation technique (an Australian group and Norfolk group in USA).

 

The long awaited respect

India’s first scientifically documented “test-tube baby” was reported to be born on August 6, 1986 by a team led by Dr. T. C. Anand Kumar (Institute for Research in Reproduction Bombay) and Dr. Indira Hinduja at KEM Hospital Bombay (now Mumbai). The girl was named Harsha (born to Mrs. Mani Chawda and Mr. Shanti Kumar). Things went on as usual and for very long we were told that Harsha was the first test-tube baby from India (she was second, after Durga).

In the year 1997, Dr. T. C. Anand Kumar was invited for a talk at Third National Congress on Assisted Reproductive Technology and Advances in Infertility Management at Calcutta (now Kolkata). It was Dr. T. C. Anand Kumar, who officially accepted and announced that Dr. Subhas Mukerji was the architect of India’s first “test tube baby”. A detailed report of the evidences clearly indicating the achievements of Dr. Mukerji was published in the journal Current Science in the year 1997 (cited in the reference section). After 19 years, Dr. Subhas Mukerji was posthumously credited with the respect and credit that was his.

In very strong words, Dr. T. C. Anand Kumar mentioned that the ignorance of the medical fraternity, bureaucratic arrogance, and vindictiveness led to the loss of one of our distinguished scientists. We also lost our claim over world’s first successful implantation of cryopreserved and thawed embryo resulting in birth of a human being.

 

References

• Anand Kumar T. C. Architect of India’s first test tube baby: Dr. Subhas Mukerji (16 January 1931 to 19 July 1981). Current Science, 1997; 72(7): 526-531
• Bharadwaj A. The Indian IVF saga: a contested history. Reprod Biomed Soc Online. 2016; 2: 54-61
• Nobel prize 2010. Science Reporter (NISCAIR India), December 2010; 47(12).
• https://blogs.sciencemag.org/sciencecareers/2011/01/the-award-of-th.html ; accessed on August 2, 2020.
• https://www.thebetterindia.com/129159/subhash-mukherjee-doctor-india-first-test-tube-baby/; accessed on August 2, 2020.