Growing up as the son of farmers in rural India, D. Samba Reddy, a professor at the Texas A&M University Health Science Center College of Medicine, was familiar with food insecurity at a young age. Though the recurring need for food drove Reddy to work for long hours in extreme weather conditions, he also had a different type of hunger — intellectual hunger.
The desire to satiate his intellectual curiosity has resulted in breakthrough research to help those affected by serious medical conditions, including epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, nerve agent poisoning, perimenstrual seizures, and post-partum depression. Reddy’s scientific achievements are extraordinary, but his journey from living in rural India to becoming the youngest full professor in his department is inconceivable.
Reddy was born in Cherlapally, a rural village in southern India. An estimated 80 percent of the Indian population is involved in agriculture, including Reddy’s family.
Because of his family’s limited financial means, Reddy was restricted to attending government-run schools in his village taught in his native language, Telugu. After becoming the first in his family to complete primary school, Reddy was eager to get started with middle school.
“In our village, we don’t have beyond primary school,” Reddy says. “So, at the end of primary school, you only know how to read and write in your native language. Most of the students would stop at that point and keep working on the farm, but I was not happy with that.”
The nearest middle school was located in a neighboring village roughly 6.2 miles away from Cherlapally. He could either walk the 12.4-mile round trip to school every day, or he would have to give up continuing his education and work on the farm instead. Reddy’s deep-rooted hunger for learning drove him to choose the former.
For three years, Reddy made the same exhausting commute every day. School started at 9am every morning, but Reddy often could not get to class until 10:30 or 11am because he needed to finish his morning shift on the farm and then walk to school. By the time he finished and got home, he was exhausted and hungry and struggled to study.
The schooling system was set up in such a way that if Reddy could pass his final exams in tenth grade, he could graduate high school and attend college, despite failing grades seven through nine.
“If you get anything above 70 percent on the exams, they call it ‘first class,’ which is equal to earning an A here,” Reddy says. “When I passed the exams in tenth grade, it was a big surprise for my entire town. That was my first A grade since primary school. From that point, there was no looking back.”
Reddy’s fascination with science led him to pursue a diploma in pharmacy at Government Junior College. This was the first time Reddy’s education was taught in English, not in his native language.
“The challenges increased a thousand-fold,” Reddy says. “I didn’t know much English at first and I really struggled for the first six months in the program.”
After his adjustment period, Reddy ended up being the highest scorer in the state during his second year.
Soon, Reddy graduated and became a licensed pharmacy technician. After working in the pharmacy for a while, Reddy was accepted to the highly selective Kakatiya University on a full-ride scholarship to begin his Bachelor of Science in pharmacy. During his fourth year, Reddy earned admission to Panjab University, one of the highest-ranked schools in India, for his master’s degree.
While later working toward his Ph.D., Reddy had his first exposure to academic research. With his pharmacy background, he was naturally drawn toward pharmacology research and its application for serious medical conditions. After graduation, he was offered a position as a lecturer in pharmacology at Panjab University, which he accepted. Reddy taught for a year, but he still dreamed of creating his own therapeutic drug.
“By then, I realized that drug discovery doesn’t happen in India because there are so few resources,” Reddy says.
After his first year as a faculty member, Reddy was offered a prestigious postdoctoral position at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
“I didn’t even know what the NIH was,” Reddy says. “I had to ask my former professor about it, and he was shocked that I didn’t know what the NIH was. That was when I realized it was a big deal.”
Reddy accepted the position and moved to North America. He spent three years at the NIH learning about how research was conducted in the United States.
After finishing his postdoc, he moved to North Carolina State University, where he opened his first research lab. During the six years that he spent in North Carolina, Reddy was promoted from assistant professor to associate professor and published research papers on therapeutic interventions for epilepsy. Eventually, he was offered a position by the Texas A&M University College of Medicine and he joined the faculty in 2008. In 2012, he became the youngest full professor in the department of Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics at age 42.
So far, Reddy has developed models and technologies for epilepsy and neurosteroid therapy, two of which have made it to clinical trials. Recently, his work has led to FDA approval of the first drug (brexanolone, Zulresso) for post-partum depression. This academic landmark exemplifies the impact of his translational research.
“My drive has changed a lot since I was in high school to now,” Reddy says. “I no longer have to constantly worry about physical hunger. Now, my drive is that I am hungry to work hard and improve the lives of others through pharmacology research.”
