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Monday, November 1, 1999

Renowned chemist sharing his vision
Inspired by sister's death, professor making difference at TAMU-Kingsville
By Mary Lee Grant
Caller-Times

George Gongora/Caller-Times

Apurba Bhattacharya, who was hired this year as a professor at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, holds about 20 patents on drugs he helped develop during his 20-year career in the pharmaceutical industry.

When he was a teen-ager growing up in Calcutta, Apurba Bhattacharya watched his sister die from a lack of medical attention because his family lived in desperate poverty.
   "I knew that if we had been able to afford the right drugs and medical attention, she would have survived,'' he said. "I saw her lying there with tubes coming out of her, knowing that if we had more money, she would have lived.''
   Bhattacharya made a vow to himself: escape from the grinding poverty in which he lived and study a profession that would make a concrete difference in people's lives.
   He became a chemist.
   Bhattacharya, who was hired this year as a professor at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, has worked for 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry, developing drugs for major companies like Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb. He has about 20 patents on drugs.
   He is best known for helping invent the anti-baldness drug Proscar but also has worked on everything from anti-cancer agents to antihistamines.
   "He is listed in all the big chemical manuals,'' said Mauro Castro, chairman of the A&M-Kingsville chemistry department. "I am in awe. The only place I am listed is in the Kingsville phone book. We are really honored that he chose to come to our department, and at a big salary cut.''
   In developing Proscar in 1990, Bhattacharya found that the same enzymes that cause prostate inflammation as men age also cause baldness. He was able to develop a drug to control the enzyme.
   Bhattacharya said that inventing drugs is the most exciting career he can imagine, and that now he hopes to get local students enthused about the possibility.
   "It so wonderful to think you may be inventing a drug that will change people's lives,'' he said. "And when I am doing it, I always think of my sister. There are so many diseases that couldn't be cured 100 years ago, and through drugs we have the answer.''
   Bhattacharya stands beside a blackboard, drawing diagrams of the chemical compounds that he invented and explaining them in remarkably simple terms.
   "That is one of the things that is so great about him,'' Castro said. "Truthfully, when we hired a great researcher, there was the risk that he wouldn't be able to get down the level of the students. But Bhattacharya can.''
   Bhattacharya came to South Texas because his wife, Cathy Dulak, is a Corpus Christi physician. He went to A&M-Kingsville because he thought he could make a real contribution there, he said.
   "I want to help the students here, many of whom came from poor backgrounds like mine,'' he said. "I want to give them the confidence that they can achieve their dreams and change the world. I don't believe in resting on past accomplishments. You have to give 100 percent all the time. And then maybe you will come close to achieving what you want to achieve.''



Staff writer Mary Lee Grant can be reached at 886-3752 or by e-mail at grantm@caller.com

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