Har Swarup, FNA (9 December 1922 – 25 April 1981) was vice-chancellor, academician, and scientist in the field of developmental biology and genetic engineering as well as an academician and teacher of molecular biology and biochemistry. He is known for his research at Oxford University on polyploidy, cloning, nuclear transfer and later for his many other researches such as the discovery of "ringed polysome figures" and on theories on gene expression changes with evolution and environment. In recognition of his contributions, he was awarded the Sir Dorabji Tata Medal, nominated as a fellow of Indian National Science Academy, Honorary Chief Wild Life Warden of the State of Madhya Pradesh and was the vice-chancellor of Jiwaji University, Gwalior until his death.
Early days and education
Har Swarup was born in village Biaora, District Rajgarh in Madhya Pradesh, India in an illustrious family, his father being Late Shyam Behari Lal, a commissioner of taxes in Rajgarh State and grand father the late Devi Prasad, an architect who had in the beginning of the century migrated to central India to design Taj-ul-Masajid (one of the largest mosques in Asia) on a request by Nawab Shah Jahan Begum (1868–1901) ruler of Bhopal. Recognizing his rare brilliance even during his primary education in the pre-independent India, Har Swarup at a young age was sent to Agra and abroad to UK for further studies. He achieved academic distinction in High School Certificate Examination, went on to secure first position both in BSc (1944) and MSc (1946) examinations respectively from Agra University. During his university years, apart from playing first class cricket he actively participated in the freedom movement having met Mahatma Gandhi who influenced him immensely to spearhead the Agra University students movement in the aftermath of the Quit India Resolution at Wardha in 1942. It was again on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi to further the cause of higher education in the country that he joined as a lecturer at D.A.V College in Kanpur in 1946 and subsequently at Sagar in Madhya Pradesh where he completed his doctorate in 1953 while also helping Sir Hari Singh Gaur in setting up the first university of the State at Sagar in Madhya Bharat (now Madhya Pradesh). Har Swarup went to England on a GOI-Rhodes Scholarship in 1955 to be awarded a D Phil at Oxford and opted to return to newly independent India despite several offers abroad, to become one of the youngest university professors in India.
Researches at Oxford
In England he worked with Professor Michael Fischberg for his D Phil at University of Oxford along with John Bertrand Gurdon to do pioneering research on nuclear transplantation and cloning, that now are recognised for potential stem cell and other medical applications. In his path breaking research he could induce successful nuclear transplantation and polyploidy in fish Stickleback, Gasterosteus aculatus, that was reported in the prestigious scientific journal Nature. Prof. John Bertrand Gurdon used the same technique on the frog, Xenopus under Prof Michael Fischberg at Oxford and was later awarded the Nobel Prize in 2012 for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent. It was the pioneering work to induce polyploidy and the successful cloning of fish and frog respectively by Dr H. Swarup and Dr J. Gurdon using intact nuclei from the somatic cells as an extension of the work of Briggs and King in 1952 on transplanting nuclei from the embryonic blastula cells that was then internationally acclaimed. The British Scientist, Dr. J.B.S. Haldane hailed the work of Dr Har Swarup for its potential medical applications and in describing the results, became one of the first to use the word "clone" in reference to animals. Once Dr. Haldane wrote to Prof. Hickling who was looking for a cytogeneticist that Dr Har Swarup was the best cytogenetist he could get in whole of England. His simple technique for production of polyploidy by hot and cold shock made him so famous that he was invited to demonstrate it at several places like Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and at the then recently set up Marine Biological Station at Plymouth. Sir Ronald Fisher and Professor C.D. Darlington made special mention of Professor Swarup's technique at International Genetical Conference at Oxford to be later invited by Hamburg University, Germany, Tribhuvan University, Nepal and Karachi University, Pakistan. His work opened a new vista for the development of other breakthrough technologies and is widely quoted even today in almost all standard textbooks on biotechnology and genetics.