The folic acid in your prenatal vitamin traces back to this Indian scientist

Millions of pregnant women around the world take folic acid supplements on medical advice, but few know that the research behind the recommendation traces back to an Indian scientist named Yellapragada Subbarow.

Subbarow joined Lederle Laboratories in New York in 1940, where he led research on folic acid, a vitamin that plays a crucial role in cell growth and development. His work helped establish why folic acid supplementation during pregnancy is recommended today, as it reduces the risk of neural tube defects in babies.

That wasn’t his only contribution to modern medicine. His research on folic acid also laid the foundation for aminopterin, one of the earliest drugs shown to induce remission in childhood leukaemia, work that eventually led to methotrexate, a medicine still used to treat several cancers as well as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. He also contributed to the discovery of Aureomycin, the first tetracycline antibiotic, and diethylcarbamazine, still recommended by the World Health Organization to help eliminate lymphatic filariasis.

Born in 1895 in Bhimavaram, in present-day Andhra Pradesh, Subbarow grew up after his father, a Sanskrit scholar, died of tropical sprue, a disease poorly understood at the time. Two of his brothers also died of illness, tragedies that fuelled his determination to study medicine.

He never won a Nobel Prize, and died in 1948 at the age of 53. But his research quietly continues to shape how modern medicine treats pregnancy, cancer and infection today.

Image: Wikimedia Commons