First Baby Born Through Ivf in India Planning to Have Second
Onorthward August 6, 1986, India officially entered the brave new world of assisted conception with the widely publicized birth of its offset 'scientifically documented' IVF baby, Harsha Shah.
Xi years afterward, TC Anand Kumar — the pioneering doctor who collaborated with gynaecologist Indira Hinduja to create India'southward first test-tube baby — realized that the championship he bore belonged to someone else. Kumar had been browsing through some documents he had received at the recently-held Science Congress when he came beyond the handwritten notes of Dr Subhash Mukherjee.
Meticulous scrutiny and cantankerous-verification made Anand Kumar conclude that the Bengali doctor had preceded him past eight years — India's first test-tube baby, Kanupriya Agarwal alias Durga, had already been born on October three, 1978, in Kolkata.
Durga was too the world's second test-tube infant, born only 67 days after the headline-grabbing birth of Marie Louise Brown in England!
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Shocked that the incredible feat had received most no acknowledgement from India's scientific community, Anand Kumar took the courageous decision of researching Subhash's findings and scientifically presenting it to the world, giving the forgotten doctor his due identify in medical history.
In his speech communication at 3rd National Congress on Assisted Reproductive Technology held in Calcutta on February 8, 1997, he made an appeal that Subhash Mukherjee should be credited posthumously for creating India'south first test-tube infant. Two months later, he followed upward his appeal with the publication of an commodity in the journalCurrent Scientific discipline, entitled 'Architect of India's first test tube baby: Dr Subhash Mukherjee'.
Cheers to this article and Anand Kumar's tireless efforts, the Indian scientific globe belatedly woke upwardly to monumental nature of the medical achievement.
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However, it was just in 2002 that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) formally recognised the efforts of the forgotten genius. Withal, this pioneering md remains petty-known among Indians, his path-breaking work unsung and his contribution to modern science overlooked. Its fourth dimension this changed.
Born on January 16, 1931, in Hazaribagh district of nowadays-day Jharkhand, Subhash was the son of a medico and studied at the National Medical College in Kolkata after completing his schooling. Fascinated by innovations in gynaecological surgery from his early days as a medical educatee, he completed his PhD in reproductive physiology from the University of Calcutta before going to Edinburgh University in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland for a PhD in reproductive endocrinology.
On his return to Bharat in 1967, the defended doctor started researching ovulation and spermatogenesis. Soon later, he teamed upwards with Sunit Mukherji, a cryobiologist, and Saroj Kanti Bhattacharya, a gynaecologist, to work on a method of in-vitro fertilization for a patient (Bela Agarwal) with damaged fallopian tubes.
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On October iii, 1978, Subhash and his team announced the nativity of the world's second test tube baby in Calcutta, a infant girl who was nicknamed Durga after the Hindu goddess who embodies the feminine force of creation.
Non only had their attempt at in-vitro fertilisation succeeded, they had also successfully achieved the cryopreservation of an eight-cell embryo — storing it for 53 days, thawing in DMSO reagent and replacing it into the mother'south womb — a full five years before anyone else would practice and so.
He was likewise the beginning to use human menopausal gonadotrophins (hMG) to stimulate ovaries to produce extra eggs. Every bit Anand Kumar later on said, Subhash was "far ahead of his time in successfully using an ovarian stimulation protocol before anyone else in the world had thought of doing and so."
And so Subhash's method was different from — and, in the stance of some, superior to — the one used by the English scientists RG Edwards and Patrick Steptoe for the nativity of the globe'due south kickoff exam-tube baby in Oldham just 67 days ago (they did non freeze the embryo and their laparoscope technique of extracting eggs from ovaries was more difficult).
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Only dissimilar his counterparts in England, Subhash's ground-breaking work did not receive acclaim and accolades from his countrymen. Instead, it was greeted with disbelief and disdain from the Indian scientific establishment.
Investigated by an official scientific committee that included no one qualified to evaluate his work, Subhash was vilified for making artificial claims, with the master thread in their statement being the doctor's lack of documentation.
This reasoning is withal spiritedly refuted by his teammate Sunit Mukherji who says that Subhash had published a newspaper in theIndian Journal of Cryogenics in 1978, presented his findings at the International Congress on Hormonal Steroids at Delhi the same twelvemonth and fifty-fifty submitted a written report on his work to the state government.
As for why Subhas did non physically produce Durga and her parents equally bear witness to consolidate his merits. the reply lies in the stigma associated with being childless in 1970s. Fearing social ostracism, the couple did non allow Mukerji to publicize the details of their daughter'due south birth.
In an interview, Durga told the Livemint that her bourgeois parents weren't prepared for the unsavoury media blitz that came with her birth and retreated from the public glare completely to maintain their privacy.
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As such, Subhash continued to confront opposition and ridicule. The vindictiveness and insensitivity of the institutionally backed gynaecologists' lobby also prevented him from presenting his piece of work to the international scientific customs.
For instance, he was denied permission to travel to the Primate Enquiry Centre of Japan's Kyoto University in 1979, where he had been invited to discuss his work. In a final act of ignominy, he was transferred by the authorities to Kolkata'due south Regional Institute of Ophthalmology in June 1981.
Humiliated and dispirited, Subhash committed suicide June xix, 1981, at his flat on Kolkata's Southern Artery. With this, India lost one of the most vivid minds the country had ever seen. A decade later, his tragic story became the theme ofEk Doctor ki Maut, a National Laurels-winning film made by manager Tapan Sinha.
However, it would accept nigh a quarter of a century for everyone to cease doubting his story.
In October 2003, on the 25th birthday of India's showtime test-tube baby, a office was organised by ICMR and Hope Fertility Dispensary in Bengaluru in which the scientific community finally gave Subhash Mukherjee his due.
Durga, who was nowadays, said, "I am not a trophy but proud to exist the living example of the work of a genius. Justice has been done to my scientific dad."
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In 2007, the story of his life and work were included in the Lexicon of Medical Biography, a book published by Wellcome Trust Heart for the History of Medicine at UCL, London, that lists the names of 1100 scientists from 100 countries effectually the earth who have made path-breaking contributions to medical science.
A year after, during an event celebrating 30 years completion of IVF, Brazilian Medical Society as well recognized and honoured Subhash for his incredible achievements. Interestingly, in 2010, RG Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his work in developinginorthward vitro fertilization (IVF) in humans.
A scientist par excellence, Subhash Mukherjee was the inventor of a modernistic miracle, one that would alter the lives of millions of childless couples in the years to come up. In fact, his method is currently the preferred technique of medically assisted reproduction worldwide. Its time nosotros gave this forgotten pioneer the respect and recognition he deserves.
Also Read: Ignored For the Nobel Prize, This Unsung Scientist Is The Father Of Fibre Optics!
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