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"Doctors must be encouraged to take up research"

"Human beings and chimpanzees are more similar than the mouse and the rat"

Doctors nowadays have little time to undertake research in their respective fields. But with technological advancements and a sedentary lifestyle, ailments such as diabetes, obesity and heart attacks are becoming increasingly common.

More doctors need to take up research not just to find cures, but to go into the root cause of these diseases and suggest ways to prevent them. Unlike in the U.S. where a large majority of medical students end up doing full-time research, most students in India are lured into the lucrative private medical practice.

Doctors, therefore, have to be encouraged to take up research full time or alongside practice, says Ajit Varki, Professor of Medicine and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Co-Director, Glycobiology Research and Training Centre and Associate Dean for Physician-Scientist Training, University of California, San Diego, U.S.A., and an alumnus of the Christian Medical College, Vellore, in an exclusive interview to P.V.V. Murthi.

He was in Vellore to participate in the Fifth Winter Symposium on `Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism-from Bench to Bedside' organised at the CMC from January 11 to 13.

Fifty-five-year-old Prof. Varki said that right from his days as a medical student in CMC Vellore 35 years ago he has been engaged in research in glycobiology — the study of sugars that cover the surface of the cells. According to him, viruses causing cholera and influenza enter the cells through these sugars. Sialic acid, a sugar that covers all cells, is the target of various microbes.

"In the last 15 years, we have found that one type of Sialic acid (GC sialic acid) is missing in humans, while it is present in animals," said Prof. Varki, who has been involved in a comparative study between human beings and chimpanzees for the last 12 years.

He is currently working on a chimpanzee genome project. He says one-third of the proteins in human beings and chimpanzees are identical, one-third differ slightly and the remaining have bigger differences. "Human beings and chimpanzees are more similar to each other than the mouse and the rat".

While malaria and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome affect human beings, chimpanzees do not fall victim to these diseases even if infected with the virus. Chimpanzees get Hepatitis-B and Hepatitis-C but do not suffer liver damage, unlike human beings. Also, chimpanzees are not affected by ovarian, breast, lung or uterine cancer unlike human beings, but get leukaemia. Nor do they get heart attacks. "If you can figure out the differences, you can come up with a rational approach to the diseases," he said.

Prof. Varki said while GC Sialic acid is missing in human beings, it is found in beef, pork, mutton and to some extent in milk. It finds its way into the human body, inducing the production of antibodies against the acid and spreads to all parts of the body. "This could contribute to lifestyle diseases," argues Prof. Varki, who adds that the GC Sialic acid was naturally present in the human body till about two million years ago.

The gene that produced this acid was destroyed through a natural process. "I will continue to study the differences between human beings and chimpanzees and try to relate the results to the disease process in human beings. I am confident of coming up with theoretical and experimental explanations on avoidable diseases," he said.

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