| Dr. Gurdip Brar A servant of science and the community By Heidi M. Pascual |
| very basic, and so I wanted to know and understand it. And any living thing involves genetics; it's through the genes that we transmit our traits to the next generation." Brar admitted that he could have chosen the medical profession, veterinary science, or engineering like many youth his age did at that time, but he said such fields didn't excite him as much as genetics. "I could be helping a lot of people and making lots of money had I become a medical doctor, for example," he said, "but 'happiness' with doing what you like to do was more important to me, and I knew then that I could also help a lot of people." Contributions to Science Coming from a farming family, he saw the need for someone to look at the crops that feed people. "I felt that I could help more by working on this field, and focusing on plants," Brar explained. "I wanted to make a huge difference." And what a huge difference he has made and continues to make. After earning his Ph.D. from the University of California-Riverside, Brar accepted a job offer in Germany as a scientist. "I was on some very exciting projects there for two years," he recalled. "I worked on the mustard plant, trying to answer the question 'What part really contributes to the formation of the seed; is it the leaves or the fruit wall, or what is it?' This was the question that nobody could answer. So I decided to tackle that one. The second project that I worked on was to determine how particular fatty acids form in plants, such as mustard. This was not really known at the time. That was also very exciting." Brar came back to the U.S. to marry the love of his life, Dorothy Watson, a graduate of the University of California- L.A. with a master's in public health. They met in a "fruit fly lab" where the mutual attraction obviously grew deeper than learning about living things without human emotions. They have been married for more than 30 years and have been blessed with two children, both pursuing post-graduate courses on opposite sides of the country: East Coast and West Coast. Brar went back "home" to India with his bride, his idealism and his skills, hoping to do something good for his country. "I thought I could 'change' India," Brar said in a sad tone. "I didn't realize that India is so large and everybody wants to do his own thing." He was on the faculty of Punjab Agricultural University where he taught and did research on oil-seed crops. "India does not have enough vegetable oil for our people," Brar noted. "Here in the U.S., that's not a problem; you just go to Woodman's and you can get whatever you want. That's not the case in India. How can you have oil-seed crop which will produce a high yield so that people could have the much-needed oil? And it's not just about the quantity of oil, but the quality as well. There are certain oils which are good for your health. So what I did there, which I feel pretty proud of, is I started an oil-seed quality lab, a facility which was as good as any in other parts of the world. That lab can determine how much oil is in the seed (non-destructively) and its fatty acid composition. It can determine the quantity of oil and the quality of oil, and that is something you really want to know. When I went back later, that lab was still running. It was just a matter of having good quality equipment and training the right people." There were two primary reasons why Brar decided to move back to the U.S. in 1980 for good: Dorothy wasn't happy with her work, and he felt that higher-ups saw him as a "threat, as if I was going to take their jobs away, and so they started taking away resources and people who were working with me." But there were pluses, too, while the couple was in India: they traveled and saw different Indian cultures, monuments and temples. Dorothy also published her book, "Microbes, Infection and Public Health," a discussion of agents of infection, how they spread and what they do. Once in the U.S., Brar started as a researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia, working on soybeans. "Soybeans have a lot of problems, but one of the worst is that there are some nematodes that attack the roots," Brar explained. "Once the nematodes attack the roots, the plant won't produce many seeds. So that was a big problem in Missouri, and I worked for over a year to solve that problem." How did he solve it? "I studied the genetics of soybeans," he patiently explained to this writer's inquisition. "You can have some varieties which are resistant to nematodes, but they don't yield that much; and then other varieties which are susceptible -- that means the nematodes eat them -- but they yield a lot if there are no nematodes. I had to somehow combine those two traits: resistant and still high-yielding. So that was certainly interesting." Brar started to once again look for a new job some place else. The reason? "Dorothy again was not happy there," he said. "There was one biotechnology company starting here in Middleton-Madison at that time, named Cetus Madison Corporation. So I started as a scientist with them in December 1981." He was particularly proud that this company became the leader in biotechnology, beating huge corporations such as Monsanto and DuPont. In 1996, however, Monsanto succeeded in buying off the plant biotechnology part of Cetus Madison (then called Agracetus). "They offered a lot of money," Brar said. "We were sold; so I worked at Monsanto until 2002. I had my own 'Brar Lab,' with 'Brar microscopes' everywhere, which was considered by some as a 'fiefdom' in itself." It was at his lab at Monsanto where he developed a corn variety which was resistant to corn root worm (CRW). "All CRW resistant corn grown in the U.S. (nearly 10 million acres) was originally produced in my lab at Monsanto," he said. He left the company when the management required him to move to the Monsanto campus in St. Louis, not to do research but to do administrative work in personnel management, "to hire and fire people," in Brar's words. "I can hire people but I cannot really let people go. It's just not me. In all my life I have only let one person go, and that was a long time ago." Brar also didn't want to move out of the Middleton-Madison area because "Dorothy loves her work here in the UW, we have made friends here since 1981, and my kids were still in school and they have made friends here as well." He became a senior scientist consultant of (best friend) Dr. Jiwan Palta's company for two years before he decided to be on his own. Nowadays, Brar is busy doing research on snoring and the respiratory system under his new company, G2DV Technologies, and is hoping to write his book on it soon, perhaps after a larger-scale testing has been done. He is also looking forward to studying how to lower high blood pressure and to lower bad cholesterol in the process. The shift from study of plants to humans came naturally for Brar as the reality of retirement looms. "I realize that if you kill a plant, nobody is really worried quite as much," Brar said. "But each person is very important; their health is important; their psyche is important." It was not hard to sense a personal conviction with what he was saying. "It's not really to make money; it's to help people," Brar stressed. "Whenever you're taking any medicine, just about anything has a side effect. But something like food or very similar to it, has very minimal, if any, side effect. Sometimes people take one medication to take care of one illness and another medication to take care of the side effect of the first one, which is terrible. It's just making the pharmaceutical companies rich. There's nothing wrong in making money but if you cannot really help people, that's not good. Helping people in a positive way is so much better." Community Service While focused on developing varieties of crops for high quality yield, Brar also became focused on community service. Aside from being active in the Association of Indians in America since 1982, he got involved in the Middleton Cross Plains Area School District through committee chairmanships, sports coaching, and initiating service clubs. "I actually started the Key Club in Middleton High School in 1994," Brar said proudly. "It is the largest in the state with over 200 members and they have done so many positive things in the community." Today, just before this interview, there were 17 Key Club members who helped in the Kiwanis Kids Day, Brar added. He said he also started the Builder Club at Kromrey Middle School and the Kiwanis Kids Club at Elm Lawn School where his children attended. "I thought that starting those service groups at different school levels was a pretty neat thing to do," Brar said. "It gets people and the kids started very early on, not asking what is in it for them, but what they can do for other people." For his numerous community and volunteer services that impact children and adults through the years, Brar received the "Good Neighbor Award" in 1995, the highest award for community service in the City of Middleton, as well as recognitions from area schools, the Kiwanis International, and the Rotary Club. Recently, the Association of Indians in America presented Brar with a Lifetime Achievement award, in gratitude for his community service and professional achievements that put Indians on the map of Wisconsin. A lover of nature, Brar co-founded and co-chaired the Friends of Kettle Ponds, a nonprofit that seeks to preserve and develop ponds in Middleton and Madison's west side. Just prior to this interview, he was with his neighbors and members of Friends of Kettle Ponds on a "bird walk." "This is the time of the year when some birds migrate, so we have an expert ornithologist," he said. "We took the people around; they used binoculars to watch the birds (cranes) and they asked questions. After that, I got them started and then we gathered the Boy Scouts, the Optimists and the Kiwanis kids who came to help clean the large park, the Lake View Park." These are just some of Brar's community involvements, and he knows he won't stop. "I'm just trying to do a little bit to help the community," he said. "I think it is rare you get to do something like these with kids and their parents." Future plans Brar hopes to pursue his latest research and make some money out of it, so he can help people in India where he was born. "There are lots of things I'd like to do in India," he said. "Where I grew up, people still don't have much of a library there, so I am hoping to start some of that. I want to make a difference in their lives. They're just like me; the difference is I came over here. One dollar doesn't go quite as far here, but it goes much farther in India. If I were to have money beyond what I need, I will just help people. My family, my kids are OK; they're both in graduate school, and they have their own lives. They have a wonderful mother; she did a great job." And their father, too. |
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| When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we sometimes wonder, "Do I look like my mother or my father? Which of them has the most influence in my makeup, my traits, my abilities? Why?" These are some of the questions Gurdip Brar wanted to answer when he decided to pursue a course in genetics back in India. "Genetics is somehow very exciting because it's why we look like our mom and dad," Brar explained in an interview with Asian Wisconzine recently. "It's |
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