Chakrabarty was born in the small town of Sainthia in the Indian state of West Bengal on 4 April 1938. He was the youngest of seven children; his father was a merchant and his mother a homemaker. In his early days, he began to show sharp intellect, with strong interests in science and the ancient language of Sanskrit. After his early education at Sainthia High School and Ramkrishna Belur Vidyamandir, he majored in chemistry as an undergraduate at St. Xavier’s College (now University) in Kolkata and later received his MSc and PhD in the emerging discipline of biochemistry from Calcutta University under the tutelage of Sailesh Chandra Roy. Chakrabarty published his PhD work in the Biochemical Journal. In 1965, Irwin ‘Gunny’ Gunsalus from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign read his papers and offered him a postdoctoral position. Gunsalus trained many luminaries1. In Gunny’s lab, Chakrabarty learned about the pathways of hydrocarbon degradation in Pseudomonas bacteria. He remained so loyal to this genus that he was often heard to say, “I only have one e-mail address, and it is pseudomo@uic.edu.”

Al’s scientific journey continued for another five decades. As a research scientist at General Electric’s Research & Development Center, he did not enjoy his initial project: to convert cow manure to more proteinaceous cattle feed using bacteria. At the same time, serious oil spills were becoming more regular and having adverse impacts on the environment. On weekends and evenings, he began studying degradative pathways of hydrocarbons in Pseudomonas with the hope that one day a genetically modified form of the bacteria would help clean up oil spills. By inserting into the bacteria multiple circular DNA molecules (known as plasmids), each with genes encoding different enzymatic functions in hydrocarbon degradation, he and his team were able to create a new variety of Pseudomonas that could degrade crude oil in Petri dishes. This was a eureka moment for Chakrabarty, who was especially excited to present his findings at scientific meetings and conferences. But his bosses at GE had a different idea. Compelled by the potential commercial application of Chakrabarty’s discovery, they wanted him to file a patent on his bacteria. Chakrabarty filed a patent application in 1972 with the help of GE attorney Leo MaLossi, knowing full well that the US Patent & Trademark Office had never before granted a patent on a living organism.

Enjoying our latest content?
Log in or create an account to continue

  • Access the most recent journalism from Nature's award-winning team
  • Explore the latest features & opinion covering groundbreaking research
Access through your institution

or

Sign in or create an account
Continue with Google
Continue with ORCiD