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 www.indo-fiji.webs.com       INDO-FIJI ACTION     www.tinyurl.com/indofiji
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                         Dr. Yogesh Patel 1943-2003     

        'Great scientist, devoted Canadian' Doctor had a fine eye 
          for research, detail and craftsmanship, said his wife
  
ALAN HUSTAK   
The Gazette  

Saturday, January 18, 2003

  Yogesh Patel was a hard- nosed scientist recognized internationally for 
his ground-breaking research into somatostatin, a peptide hormone found 
in the brain, and for the key role it plays in the fight against 
Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, depression and drug addiction.

The McGill University professor died of cancer at his Westmount home on 
Jan. 8 at the age of 60. 

He was also head of the Endocrine Division at the McGill University 
Health Centre (MUHC) and director of the Fraser Laboratory for Research 
in Diabetes.

He was an expert in neurotransmitter chemicals like dopamine and 
somatostatin, which regulate cell functions and govern both motor 
activities and emotional states.

His big scientific breakthrough was to come up with a new technique - 
fluorescent resonance energy transfer. In layman's terms Patel discovered 
that two totally different receptors in the brain could exchange messages 
and cross talk with each other.

"He was a shark in the laboratory, quick, bright, well read and highly 
prepared," Seymour Reichlin, his mentor and a retired Tufts University 
professor of medicine, told The Gazette.

"He stayed with the topic and went deeper and deeper into the project. 
Using standard methods he came up with new information. As new techniques 
came along, he adapted, and just kept on going with it until the day he 
died. That's the mark of a truly great scientist," Reichlin said in a 
telephone interview from Tucson, Ariz.

It was Reichlin who first introduced Patel to somatostatin research in 
1973.

Yogesh Chandra Patel was born in Ba, Fiji Islands, on May 9, 1942, the 
third child in an aristocratic family of 10 children. 

Patel was educated in Fiji by the Marist Brothers, a Roman Catholic 
order of teaching brothers, and won a scholarship to study medicine at 
Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand. 

He obtained his PhD in Neuroendocrinology at Morash University in 
Melbourne, Australia. In 1967, he married Vimla Lodhia, who is herself 
an effortlessly gracious psychologist and they had two sons, Sunil and 
Camille.

Patel took his post doctoral fellowship at Tufts Medical Centre in 
Boston, Mass., and conducted his own independent research in Geneva 
before being recruited by McGill University and emigrating to Montreal 
in 1977.

"He was part of the changing face of Canadian science," said Richard 
Cruess, McGill's former dean of medicine, "a great scientist whose 
background was truly international in scope who became a truly devoted 
Canadian. He was compassionate, kind, a man of enormous integrity, 
an absolute straight arrow."

Lelio Orci, a doctor with the Department of Morpholgy at the University 
of Geneva, described Patel as "a creative scientist, a man of outstanding 
personal qualities, a great inquisitive mind, of charm and humour whose 
findings will have enormous implications on new drugs design." 

Patel had applied for patents on his discovery, and if drug companies 
make use of his findings, both his estate and McGill University could 
earn substantial royalties. 

"He was not only a great scientist, but an exceptionally talented 
physician with great bedside manner," said Jacques How, McGill's 
acting director of endriconology. 

"He never showed any sign of anger, which is rare for a scientist. 
He was very honest, sincere and warm. His patients and his residents 
just loved him." 

Patel was the author of thousands of scientific papers and two academic 
texts described as "unbelievably complex."

A man of discriminating taste, he collected Venetian glass and Persian 
carpets.

"He had a fine eye for research, for detail and for craftsmanship," 
his wife said.

Patel was elected to the Association of American Physicians in 1993, 
and became a member of the Royal Society of Canada in 1994.

Patel was invested as a member of Order of Canada last September, and 
the same year was given the Medical Research Council of Canada's 
distinguished scientist award.

This year he was awarded the Queen's Jubilee medal, but was too ill 
to attend the presentation ceremony.

He was cremated and the family held a private funeral a week ago Friday. 
Some of ashes will be spread on the Ganges later this year. 

A memorial service will be held in the Birks Chapel, 3520 University St. 
at 10 a.m. on Feb 17.

Donations may be made to the Yogesh Patel Memorial Fund, c/o The 
Royal Victoria Hospital Foundation Office, 
Rm. H4.33, 687 Pine Ave. W., Montreal, H3A 1A1. 

Ahustak@thegazette.southam.ca

Obituary of Yogesh Patel

© Copyright 2003 Montreal Gazette
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Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html 
                  Doctrine  of International Copyright Law
 
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