Satish Keshav was an Oxford specialist in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, the son of Mohanlal Keshav, a headteacher, and Taramati Keshav née Gopal Dewa, a housewife, but spent his early years in Zambia. He was a brilliant student, and ended his school days as the top student in the Indian matriculation exams.
Satish won a scholarship to read medicine at the University of Witwatersrand, achieved a first in his BSc in biochemistry and physiology, came top of his MB BCh year in 1985, gaining the Medical Association of South Africa medal, and did his house posts at Hillbrow Hospital in Johannesburg. He won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford in 1987 and served on the committee of Rhodes Scholars Against Apartheid. He was instrumental in establishing the Bram Fischer Memorial lecture, which is now an annual event. His DPhil, with Siamon Gordon at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, was on macrophage activation that led on to Paneth cell biology, which remained an abiding passion and he became a gastroenterologist as a consequence. He was two decades ahead of his time in recognising their pivotal role in the pathogenesis of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
After two years at Balliol, he became a Staines Medical research fellow at Exeter College (from 1989 to 1992), then a Nuffield Medical research fellow at Corpus Christi and a research fellow at the Dunn School (from 1992 to 1995). After senior house officer and registrar posts in the Nuffield department of medicine in Oxford, he completed specialist gastroenterology training at the Royal Free Hospital, where he was appointed as a senior lecturer and honorary consultant (in 2000). He was awarded the Buckston Browne prize of the Harveian Society of London in 2001.
In 2007 he returned to Oxford as a consultant gastroenterologist, where he continued his active research interests into the pathogenesis, classification and novel therapy of IBD. He became clinical director of gastroenterology, endoscopy and theatres in 2013, a post he held until he died.
Recruiting Satish from the Royal Free to Oxford was the best appointment in gastroenterology that Oxford ever made. He was everything that you could ever wish for in a colleague, being hard working, conscientious, reflective and wise as a consequence, being able to laugh at the ridiculous and support the less advantaged. He always listened with respect, seeking to persuade others from their point of view by reasoned argument. Perhaps this was a tribute to his upbringing in South Africa in an era where lack of respect in some quarters was institutionalised. It was this respect and his kindness that made him special to all who had the privilege to work with him.
He helped build the translational gastroenterology unit, established in 2009 by Fiona Powrie, by establishing the Oxford cohort of inflammatory bowel disease with Holm Uhlig, Carolina Arancibia, Jennifer Hollis and colleagues, now numbering more than 4,000 patients. Satish had an enquiring mind, searching to understand inflammation in the gut and also for novel therapy. He contributed substantially to the development of new drugs, working with Tom Schall and colleagues at ChemoCentryx on manipulating leucocyte trafficking. Original work on the protein LAG3 and its role in inflammation has led to GSK starting (in 2019) a clinical trial with LAG3 as a target.
Satish was an outstanding intellect, a thoughtful clinician much loved by his patients and a wonderful colleague. His understated, quiet manner disguised a fine sense of humour, but never at another’s expense: his percipience, patience and modesty made him a wise colleague who will be much missed not only in Oxford but around the world. He made seminal contributions to gastroenterology, especially in basic, translational and clinical IBD research, but was a polymath, interested in philosophy, music, literature and the idiosyncrasies of the world in which we live. Moving memorials were held at Rhodes House and the John Radcliffe Hospital, with many speakers from around the world, from the humanities as well as science and from all sections of society. As a tribute to his memory Oxford has established the Keshav award, to be presented to the best trainee in science or clinical practice at the translational gastroenterology unit, and a fund in his name to support biomedical science trainees from disadvantaged backgrounds. He leaves his mother, sister, wife Camila Buckley and three sons, Vijay, Ajay and Sanjay.
Camilla Buckley
Simon Travis
[European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation Inflammatory Bowel Disease In Memoriam – Professor Satish Keshav www.ecco-ibd.eu/publications/ecco-news/item/in-memoriam-professor-satish-keshav.html – accessed 29 August 2019]