By Amit Roy
A TOTAL of 51 new Fellows and 10 foreign members were elected to the Royal Society in 2019, but at the admissions ceremony last Friday (12), the loudest applause appeared to be reserved for Dr Yusuf Hamied, the chairman of Cipla, the Indian pharma giant, who was made an honorary Fellow.
Earlier in the week, each of them had to deliver a 15-minute speech explaining his or her work. Again, the loudest applause seemed to be for Hamied's speech, Chemistry in the service of humanity.
He recalled: "Indian philosopher Swami Vivekananda, once said, 'Wisdom lies not in the amount of knowledge acquired, but in the degree of its application.’
"The pharma industry is different from other industries. We have to combine business acumen with humanitarian responsibility. We are custodians of health-care and are responsible for the welfare and treatment of patients to overcome disease and lead to a better quality of life.”
Hamied's voice broke as he finished: "For me, the past 60 years has been a difficult struggle against many odds. Today, this recognition from the Royal Society is the fulfilment of my life's mission.”
Among those who cheered his admission to the society was Prof Sir Venkatraman ('Venki') Ramakrishnan's younger sister, Lalita Ramakrishnan, who was her-self elected a Fellow last year because of her work on tuberculosis (TB).
Work on the disease is also the reason why Gurdyal Singh Besra, professor of microbial physiology and chemistry at Birmingham University, has been made a Fellow this year.
"My work involves looking at new drug targets for tuberculosis," Besra explained. "TB is still a huge problem. There are around one million deaths per year and around three million new cases each year and it is very much prevalent in Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America.”
Gagandeep Kang, executive director, translational Health and Technology Institute in India, was elegant in a sari as she went up on stage to sign the centuries-old register like everyone else with a proper fountain pen and be made a Fellow by Venki.
"I think I am being recognised for the quality of the clinical research I have done in India that directly impacts public health through studying vaccines and nutrition in Indian children," said ICang, who commutes between New Delhi and Vellore in South India.
Others made Fellows include Akshay Venkatesh, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, who said: "I worked on number theory which is a branch of pure mathematics.” Asked if this was the mathematics made famous by Srinivasa Ramanujan, he replied: "It is in the same general field.”
Venkatesh was born in Delhi and went to America after growing up in Australia.
Manjul Bhargava, a professor of mathematics at Princeton University who was a consultant in the 2016 film about Ramanujan - The Man Who Knew Infinity - is in the 2019 batch of Fellows but was unable to attend.
Among the new Fellows who were present was Anant Parekh, professor of cell physiology at Oxford.
He said: "We have made some significant discoveries in the field of how cells communicate with one another particularly in the immune system; and how this can go wrong in human diseases with a focus on asthma and allergic disorders.”
Sitting by him was his proud father, Lord Bhikhu Parekh, a former professor of politics at Hull University and a vice-chancellor of Baroda University in India.
Akkihebbai R Ravishankara, a professor in the departments of chemistry and atmospheric science at Colorado State University, who has been made a foreign member, said: "I was born in Shimoga near Bangalore. I left for America when I was 20 years old. That was 49 years ago.
"I have been doing work on atmospheric chemistry related to climate and ozone layer depletion, air quality and such environmental issues.
"Now I am mostly interested in air pollution in India. Pollution is a chronic killer, but it need not be an unavoidable by-product of economic growth.”
There were two other Asian origin scientists honoured this year. One is Salim S Abdool Karim, director for the AIDS pro-gramme of research in South Africa.
The other is Kumar Wickramasinghe, a Sri Lankan-origin professor in the department of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California in Irvine. He was educated in London at King's College and University College.
Bob Blackman MP speaks during the event