The great philosopher Plato wrote in The Republic around 380 BC, “Our need will be the real creator”a truth that has since evolved into the timeless adage: necessity is the mother of invention. This philosophy found new meaning in the early 1990s when Prof. Chittaranjan Kole, a young assistant professor at Odisha University of Agriculture & Technology (OUAT), ignited a silent revolution in Indian science. Returning from Moscow in 1989 after pioneering work in plant biotechnology, he became the first Indian scientist to initiate plant genomics and genetic engineering research well before the subject became a national priority.
Yet, fate had something different in store. Instead of a grand welcome or cutting-edge laboratory, Dr. Kole was first posted to an undergraduate college at Chiplima. It is a remote location in Odisha with no research facilities. Even when he was transferred to the main campus at Bhubaneswar a year later, he was given a mere 13’ x 8’ room crammed with laboratory junk: broken glassware, old chemicals, and not a single usable instrument. Far removed from departmental labs and standard infrastructure, it was here that Prof. Kole, one of the world’s most inventive scientific minds, transformed this abandoned space into what would become the ‘lying-in-room’ of Indian plant proteomics.
While the world raced ahead with DNA-RNA technologies, Dr. Kole turned to what he had proteins. At a time when no scientist globally imagined using proteins for genetic analysis, he dared to conceive it. Supported by a modest ICAR research project and assisted by his close colleague and future PhD student Dr. B.S. Naik, he began developing a strategy based on protein electrophoresis. Within three years, his groundbreaking concept of seed protein markers took shape proving that humble resources, when used with visionary purpose, can change the direction of science.
Recognizing his remarkable achievements despite minimal support, the Department of Biotechnology deputed him to the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the USA from 1993 to 1997, where he made further pioneering contributions to plant genomics. However, his return to India was met again with irony, he was posted to Phulbani, a remote location without even a functioning lab. Yet his resolve did not falter. He would often travel overnight to Bhubaneswar on weekends and holidays to continue his research.
His perseverance bore fruit when he secured two mega projects from DBT and ICAR on molecular mapping. Still, he never abandoned his work on seed protein markers. His continuous efforts and innovative ideas eventually won over the Vice Chancellor of OUAT, who extended generous support to establish the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (LMBB). It is a 2,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility, the largest of its kind under any individual scientist in India. It became a hub not just for OUAT but for researchers across India, enabling multidisciplinary collaboration and training.
Together with his team members Dr. B.S. Naik, Dr. G. Padmavathi, and Dr. Jogeswar Panigrahi. Prof. Kole demonstrated how SDS-PAGE-based seed protein analysis could be a low-cost yet powerful tool for genetic research. They applied this technology in a wide range of crops including mungbean, urdbean, country bean, and rice. The team developed markers to distinguish aromatic vs. non-aromatic rice varieties, identify pigeon pea hybrids, understand the evolution of Vigna species, and even detect resistance markers against major pests and diseases such as MYMV and Cercospora leaf spot in mungbean and green leafhopper in rice.
This innovation empowered resource-poor laboratories across the country to pursue molecular breeding and marker-assisted selection using simple, inexpensive tools. In the long run, it paved the way for the emergence of proteomics as a major discipline in plant science, making his contribution truly foundational.
And yet, in a painful paradox, India failed to adequately recognize its own scientific visionary. Prof. Kole, who chose to return to his homeland rather than stay back abroad like many contemporaries, continued to face neglect and lack of institutional support. He still recalls the words spoken loudly almost like a prophecy by the otherwise soft-spoken and legendary scientist of IARI, Dr. H.K. Jain, during the inaugural meeting of the NATP project at IARI: “You are a saint in science, you will never rise in India.”
How we wish those words could have been proven wrong.
