Durham Scientist Mansukh Wani Leaves Huge Legacy

He was a native of India, but hit his stride in the life science environment of North Carolina, where the state motto could well have been his own: Esse Quam Videri -- to be, rather than to seem.

Two years ago this week, RTI International Emeritus Scientist Mansukh C. Wani, Ph.D., attended a ceremony at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. He was receiving another award.

The irony of that moment, and the significance of that life, must now be noted because Dr. Wani died of natural causes last Saturday at the age of 95.

That April 2018 presentation was probably the last of the awards he took home to crowd the shelves of his modest Durham home. This one was from the Research Triangle Park Rotary Club, honoring his outstanding work in drug discovery and medicinal chemistry.

The diminutive scientist, whose discoveries since joining RTI in 1962 improved the health and lives of millions of people around the world, embraced this honor with the same humble appreciation and joy that he exuded with every one of his many, many awards. 

And some of those were truly prestigious: the National Cancer Institute Award of Recognition; the Paul Ehrlich Magic Bullet Lifetime Achievement Award; the American Association for Cancer Research’s Bruce F. Cain Memorial Award; the Charles F. Kettering Prize from the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation; and the North Carolina Award in Science from the Governor of North Carolina. 

A sweet and humble gentleman, a stubborn lab denizen, a true basic scientist with lifelong partners in his wife, Ramila, at home, and the late Dr. Monroe Wall, at work. 

During more than 50 years of medicinal chemistry exploration, Drs. Wani and Wall found a natural home in North Carolina, a state that remains an internationally recognized leader in natural-products research. And despite dispiriting opposition and eye-rolling from much of the medical establishment that questioned the possibility of converting naturally occurring phenomena to useful medicines, they persevered. 

The RTI research teams led by Drs. Wani and Wall ultimately discovered two of the world’s most significant anti-cancer agents, Taxol and Camptothecin, recognized as a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society. 

The compound they termed camptothecin came from the Chinese tree Camptotheca acuminata. It had a unique mode of action, inhibiting DNA replication and killing cancer cells.

A few years later, the RTI researchers reported the structure of Taxol, which is found in the Pacific yew tree, Taxus brevifolia. It inhibited cell division. Bingo. Biology 101 defines cancer as out-of-control cell growth. But it took them 21 years from publication of the original landmark paper on the isolation and structural determination of Taxol to its FDA approval in 1992, when Bristol-Myers Squibb brought it to market as an ovarian cancer treatment. It was subsequently approved to treat metastatic breast and lung cancers and Kaposi's sarcoma.

Analogs of camptothecin, such as Hycamtin and Camptosar, were brought to market by GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer, respectively, to fight ovarian and colon cancers.

Dr. Wani died at his home in Durham. He is survived by his wife Ramila, son Bankim, daughter-in-law Darshana, and grandson Nilesh. Dr. Wall, who lived in Chapel Hill, died in 2002 at the age of 86.

A devoted member of the Hindu Society of North Carolina, Dr. Wani was a Satyagrahi who participated in Gandhiji’s Satyagrah movement during the freedom struggle of India.

The Hindu Society of North Carolina called Dr. Wani a “thought leader, supporter and activist as our guiding philosopher for the society.” The society plans to host a memorial prayer meeting after the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.