ASIA ONE (Singapore) 08 January 10 The venom doctor
A long, snaky corridor leads you to Prof Manjunatha Kini's lab at the National University of Singapore.
In one corner, almost buried in books, sits the diminutive professor. Elsewhere, researchers are busy going about their work well past the evening hour.
They are all students of Prof Kini, who is a world-renowned expert in the field of snake toxins. It is a field he has been working in since he started his PhD work at the University of Mysore in 1979. Growing up in Shimoga, in the heavily forested region of Karnataka, he had heard of numerous instances of snake bites. Many victims died but some who managed to get treated by folk medicine in time were cured.
Could plant extracts neutralise snake toxin or was it just chance that saved these people?
This was something that fascinated him. So as soon as he finished his MSc in biochemistry as a top-ranked student, he enrolled for a PhD programme to find the truth behind folk medicine.
It was a field that no researcher in his university had embarked upon. The professor he worked under had until then been doing research on silkworms (Mysore is known for its silk saris).
That did not deter the young Kini who went on to isolate compounds in the plant extracts and found that that they do neutralise snake toxins. He also learnt that snake toxins are similar to human proteins. Then his interest shifted. If snake toxins are similar to human protein, why is our protein useful to the human body while the snake protein is toxic?
There were others working in this field elsewhere in the world too when Prof Kini set out on his quest. He wanted to make a mark for himself in this area.
"Some of the snake venom protein stops blood from clotting. My aim was to identify this segment in the snake venom protein and develop a drug that can stop unwanted clots. I could then save a lot more lives than are lost due to snake bites. Snake bites are not a small number but heart attacks and strokes kill millions of people every year," says the professor.
Being the best and first in what he does is something that drives him and keeps his interest in his work alive. As a university student, he was not only a topper in his studies but also the university's top sprinter and a member of the kho-kho team. Kho-kho is a sport popular in some parts of India and is played by teams of 12 players who try to avoid being touched by members of the opposing team.
His journey to unravel the mysteries of snake toxin took him to Japan as a post-doctoral fellow in Fukuoka's Kyushu University. He had spurned an offer from the prestigious Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore to do his doctoral as well as post-doctoral research because there was no one doing work on snake toxins there. After working at the National Institute of Immunology in Delhi for a short while, he took up research in Japan because he felt that the country was strong in protein chemistry research.
However, he had to win a battle with the Japanese language before he could feel at home in his new surroundings. Initially, he told himself that he would not bother to learn Japanese because he could manage with a bit of English in the lab. The problem arose once he stepped out. Explaining to counter staff at restaurants what he wanted became a big hassle every time he dined out. But the man who could handle deadly toxins was not going to be defeated by the challenge posed by the Japanese language. He set out on his own to master it and claims he achieved success in a few months' time.
"I used to listen to the spoken word and found that the word order and syntax were similar to my mother tongue - Kannada. Eight months after I landed in Japan, there was a competition for foreigners in spoken Japanese and I was given a special prize. The first prize winner was a Chinese lady who had been a Japanese teacher in China for 12 years!"
To help foreign students immerse themselves in local culture and practices, the university used to arrange short home stays. There were also youth societies of which he was a member. It was during one such interaction that he met the woman who became his wife.
In 1986, Prof Kini left Japan to continue his post-doctoral studies at the Medical College of Virginia in the US and in the following months, returned to marry his Japanese heart-throb Nobue with the wedding being held in India.
"In Japan, I published three papers. I learnt protein sequencing, used a lot of theoretical methods and did a bit of work on blood clotting. Before I finished, I had offers from the University of Southern California and from the Medical College of Virginia. I chose Virginia, where I learnt lots of new things," says Prof Kini, 53.
He and his wife moved to Singapore in 1994 and moved through the ranks to become a full professor in NUS. Prof Kini also holds an affiliate professorship in the department of biochemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University.
The couple, who have no children, consider Singapore to be a safe city. When it comes to food, they enjoy both Japanese and Indian cuisine and Mrs Kini has even learnt to make rasam and sambar. The two have made several friends during their stay here and some of them used to join the professor in a game of volleyball until recently. Being in Singapore means the professor is also closer to India and he is able to visit his mother often.
Prof Kini has been averaging about one patent a year after joining the NUS. He has 28 patents to his credit - all in protein chemistry. His motto is "toxins to therapeutics", which led him to launch a company called ProTherapeutics to work on drugs from his research. But due to the recent economic crisis, the company stopped work and plans for its revival have been put on ice.
Despite the long hours in the lab, Prof Kini manages to keep himself fit by playing tennis on Sundays and, on some days, taking the snaky route back home on foot - a sure-fire way to rid his body of unwanted toxins.
The venom doctor

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