Asima Chatterjee

Asima Chatterjee (née Mookerjee)[2] was born on 23 September 1917 in Bengal. She was the eldest of the two children of a medical doctor Indra Narayan Mukherjee and his wife, Kamala Devi.[3] Chatterjee grew up in Calcutta in a middle-class family where she was encouraged to be in academia.[4] Her father was very interested in botany and Chatterjee shared in his interest.[5] She graduated with honors in chemistry from the Scottish Church College of the University of Calcutta in 1936.[6][7]

Asima Chatterjee received a master's degree (1938) and a doctoral degree (1944) in organic chemistry from the Rajabazar Science College campus of University of Calcutta. She was the first Indian woman to earn a doctorate in science.[4] Her doctoral research focused on the chemistry of plant products and synthetic organic chemistry.[8] Among her notable instructors at the time were Prafulla Chandra Roy and Satyendra Nath Bose. Additionally, she had research experience from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Caltech with László Zechmeister.[9]

Chatterjee's research concentrated on natural products chemistry and resulted in anti-convulsive, anti-malarial, and chemotherapy drugs.[8] She spent around forty years researching various alkaloid compounds.[10] She also discovered anti-epileptic activity[11] in Marsilea minuta and anti-malarial activity in the plants Alstonia scholaris, Swertia chirata, Picrorhiza kurroa and Caesalpinia crista. These agents, however, have not been shown to be clinically competitive with the medications currently used for these conditions. Her work led to the development of an epilepsy drug called Ayush-56 and several anti-malarial drugs.[10]

Chatterjee also wrote around 400 papers which were published in both national and international journals.[5]

Chatterjee's contributions to science include the following:[12]

• Initiated chemical investigation of alkaloids in Rauwolfia canescens.
• Investigated the chemistry of almost all principal types of indole alkaloids.
• Contributions to the elucidation of the structure and stereochemistry of ajmalicine and sarpagine.
• First suggested stereo-configuration of sarpagine.
• Isolated and characterised geissoschizine, a key precursor in biogenesis of indole alkaloids from Rhazya stricta.
• Carried out synthetic studies on a number of complex indole, quinoline and isoquinoline alkaloids.
• Developed procedures for the preparation of beta-phenylethanolamines in connection with alkaloid synthesis.
• Elucidated the structure of luvangetin isolated from Luvanga scandens.
• Studied the action of various Lewis acids on prenylated coumarins and devised simple synthetic routes to a number of complex coumarin systems.
• Investigated the mechanism of acid-catalysed hydramine fission of beta phenylethanol amines.
• Introduced the use of periodic acid as a reagent for the detection and location of both terminal and exocyclic double bonds in organic compounds.

She joined the Lady Brabourne College of the University of Calcutta and founded the department of chemistry there.[3] In 1954, Asima Chatterjee joined the University College of Science of the University of Calcutta, as reader in pure chemistry.