Who knew that the third matriculate of a village would stand so tall in Canada! As a disciplined and diligent child, he always dreamed of flying high in his life and yes he did it! But then, why not. It was probably the effect of Nalanda – the place known for its university since ancient times.
Kailash was born in 1930 to a very well-to-do family of Smt. Etwari and Shri. Basudeo Prasad. Basudeo believed in higher education and encouraged him to find his path forward. Kailash knew what he wanted to achieve and worked hard towards his dreams.
Kailash was an all-rounder – always scored good in studies and also was active in sports. Football and basketball were his favourites. From grade 6 to 10, he had to go to a school almost two miles away in Husainpur. In grade 11, he moved into a hostel, which gave him more time to study!
In 1952, he completed his B.Sc. (botany, zoology and geology) with distinction from Science College, Patna, then MBBS (honours) in 1957 from Darbhanga Medical College, Bihar University, wherefrom he pursued an internship in obstetrics and gynaecology. He later also interned in pulmonary medicine at the Silver Jubilee TB Hospital in Delhi and then received an MD in pharmacology from University of Delhi in 1961 and a Ph.D. in pharmacology from University of Alberta, Canada, in 1967. He received a D.Sc. from University of Saskatchewan in 2015. Dr. Prasad is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada (FRCPC) and a Fellow of American College of Cardiology (FACC).
In 1958, he started his career as a demonstrator in Bhopal Medical College and Lady Hardinge Medical College, Delhi University, where he also worked as a lecturer. In 1964, he subsequently became an associate professor in pharmacology at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. His excellence quickly got him the rank of full-time professor in physiology at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. Kailash also became an associate member and adjunct professor of medicine. After his retirement in 1997, he was appointed as the professor emeritus in the department of physiology there.
Prasad, with the help of an engineer, developed the Phase Invariant Signature Algorithm (PISA) machine which is based on a high-frequency electrocardiogram for early detection, quantification and localisation of ischemic heart disease and has a copyright for this.
On a winning streak!
To his credit, he has five patents in the USA and four patents in Canada on the uses of flaxseed. He also obtained Food and Drug Administration of the USA approval for Beneflax extracted from flaxseed for health benefits. Going down the memory lane, he shares, “I got involved in flaxseed by luck actually. Once a flaxseed farmer visited me and shared that he had diabetes. He used flaxseeds for a year and to his surprise, he found he no longer had the disease anymore. He asked me to research its effect on diabetes. I did not work on diabetes but I told him that I could do something different – investigate its effect on the heart. The next day, he gave me two bags of flaxseeds and we started rolling! I approached a chemist from the department of agriculture and agri-food Canada to isolate compounds from flaxseeds. He agreed and I studied all the compounds. In a nutshell, these compounds were effective in lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, and also in preventing type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and also prevented the development of atherosclerosis that leads to heart disease.”
Kailash and his wife, Marion, first met on the University of Saskatchewan campus; they got married in 1978. She retired as a community pharmacist in 2016 after 21 years of service. They have two daughters: Rajani who has a B.Com. degree in marketing from the University of Saskatchewan and is based in Australia and Sunita who is a Canadian actress known for her work in television and film and is based in Vancouver.
Altruism: An art of living
As an acknowledgement of his achievements in cardiovascular diseases, the city of Saskatoon, in 2018, named two streets after him – Prasad Manor and Prasad Union. He has more than 40 honours and awards to his credit including a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International College of Angiology (Prague) in 2016. In 2007, the International College of Angiology in Vancouver, started the Kailash Prasad Oration Lecture and later, in 2012, he also was given the Distinguished Service Award by the same organisation in Austria. Kailash was awarded with the Ken Bowman Lifetime Research Achievement Award for Excellence in Cardiovascular Research in 2008 by the University of Manitoba. He received the Saskatchewan Centennial Medal from the Government of Saskatchewan for excellence in research and technology in 2006.
Successful, awarded, recognized, respected... but never imperious, Dr. Prasad is as Indian as any resident Indian can be. He still is a Lord Shiva devotee and prays regularly. He enjoys Indian food, especially rice and chicken curry. He still loves Indian music, especially Bollywood music, and never misses any Indian Idol (an Indian music reality show in India) episode or other dance competitions.
He visits India once a year at least, as promised to his parents. He is in continuous touch with his family back in India and shares a tight and robust bond with them. Whenever in India, he stays in Delhi with his nephew and in Bihar Sharif with his brother. He always drives down from Bihar Sharif to his village and spends the entire day there. He is involved in organising conferences on the heart and vascular diseases for scientists and physicians in various parts of India such as Udaipur, Chidambaram, Kolkata, Jaipur, etc.
Life has come a long way from where he began... but nostalgia sweeps over him often and he plans to do more for Peshaur.