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"Being challenged and rising to new
heights - that's what chemistry is all about."
Dr Bertram Fraser-Reid
In 1998, Dr Bertram Fraser-Reid became the
only Jamaican to be nominated for a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
He contributed to over 300 research publications during his
career, and did important research on the energy-supplying
substances that are called complex carbohydrates. He found
that they could be used to make many types of chemicals, paints,
medicines and plastics.
Bertram Fraser-Reid was born on 23rd February
in Bryce, Jamaica. He attended Excelsior School and then
Clarendon College. An average student who saw no real
reason to apply himself, he found his calling when he bought the
book Teach Yourself Chemistry. He received
assistance from his siblings and a family friend to study at
Queen's University in Canada, where he completed both his
bachelor's and master's degree in chemistry. After
completing his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Chemistry at the
University of Alberta, he left Canada to pursue advanced
laboratory training at the University of London, England.
Dr Fraser-Reid returned to Canada to start
work on carbohydrate research. His studies focused on
using carbohydrates to make complex materials such as plastics.
He also discovered how to use carbohydrates to repel certain
insects from plants that they would normally attack, providing a
safe way to protect crops without using insecticides. In
1980, he joined the University of Maryland in the USA and
remained there until 1982, conducting research on substances
that could be used to halt or slow the growth of cancers.
Dr Fraser-Reid later worked at Duke
University in North Carolina, where he and his team discovered a
chemical compound that would assist in understanding the deadly
disease known as sleeping sickness. This discovery earned
him the Nobel Prize nomination.
In 1996, after retiring from Duke University, he founded the
non-profit Natural Products and Glycotechnology
Research Institute in North Carolina, which he currently heads.
This group researches and develops strategies to fight diseases
in developing countries.
 In
2004, the institute synthesized the
chemical that is suspected to give cerebral malaria its
deadliness and in 2005, it successfully produced two of the
carbohydrates that are found on the tuberculosis bacteria - an
important step in finding a vaccine against this deadly disease.
In the following year, Dr Fraser-Reid led a team of four that
constructed the largest ever synthetic hetero-oligosaccharide, a
compound that may lead to a greater understanding of the working
of mycobacteria.
Dr Fraser-Reid advises that, "There is no
substitute for hard work and even that may not be enough!"
He adds, borrowing from Milton Berle, that "if there is no door
open to you, make your own door."
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