Dr. Kamal Ranadive was recognized by Google with a Google Doodle depicting the biologist using a microscope, with various components of the Google logo represented by cells beneath microscope slides.
Google is paying tribute to a cell biologist who was one of the first researchers in India to establish a relationship between cancer and specific viruses on Monday.
“My primary influence came from late-twentieth-century laboratory aesthetics and the microscopic world of cells associated with leprosy and cancer,” Ibrahim Rayintakath, an Indian-based artist who drew the doodle, said in a statement.
Ranadive would have turned 104 on Monday, according to a biography on Google’s website.
Who is Dr. Kamal?
In 1917, she was born Kamal Samarth in Pune and studied botany at Ferguson College. She then joined the Agriculture College in Pune, where she earned a Master’s degree in annonaceae cytogenetics. After marrying J.T. Ranadive, she relocated to Mumbai (then Bombay) near Tata Memorial Hospital, where she met famous pathologist VR Khanolkar, who started the Indian Cancer Research Centre.
After completing a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of George Gey (the inventor of the HeLa cell line) at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Kamal Ranadive returned to India and founded the Indian Cancer Research Centre’s first tissue culture laboratory. Her work using animal models to better understand the pathophysiology of cancer was critical. She was a pioneer in establishing a link between cancer susceptibility and the interplay of hormones and tumour virus. Additionally, she continued her research on leprosy germs, which resulted in the development of a leprosy vaccine.
Ranadive was born in 1917 and got a PhD in cytology, the study of cells, while working at the Indian Cancer Research Center. Not only was she one of the first researchers to establish linkages between cancer and certain viruses during her stint as director of the institution, but she was also one of the first to propose a relationship between breast cancer and genetics.
Ranadive also conducted research on the bacterium that causes leprosy and assisted in the development of a vaccine. In 1973, she was instrumental in establishing the Indian Women Scientists’ Association to assist women seeking careers in science.
She studied botany at Ferguson College after being born Kamal Samarth in 1917. She then enrolled at the Agriculture College in Pune, where she earned her Master’s degree studying the cytogenetics of annonaceae. She changed her name to Kamal Ranadive upon her marriage to J.T. Ranadive and relocated to Mumbai (then Bombay) near Tata Memorial Hospital, where she met famous pathologist VR Khanolkar, founder of the Indian Cancer Research Centre.
After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in the laboratory of George Gey (the inventor of the HeLa cell line), Kamal Ranadive returned to India and founded the Indian Cancer Research Centre’s first tissue culture laboratory. Her work with animal models to better understand cancer’s pathophysiology was critical. She was one of the first to recognise a link between cancer susceptibility and hormone-tumor virus interaction. Additionally, she continued her research on leprosy germs, resulting in the development of a leprosy vaccine.
