Google is celebrating an Indian cell biologist Dr Kamal Ranadive, it is her 104th birthday.
Showing her engrossed in her work with a microscope Google doodle has come up with a great tribute to the woman scientist of India.
This illustration on Google was made by India-based guest artist Ibrahim Rayintakath.
Kamal Ranadive is known for her work on cancer research. She also and came up with ways to create a more equitable society through science and education.
Kamal Samarath, also known as Kamal Ranadive, was born on November 8 in Pune, 1917.
It was her father’s encouragement that made her pursue a medical education; excelling academically throughout, she choose biology as her field of interest.
In 1949, she received a doctorate in the study of cells, cytology while working as a researcher in the Indian Cancer Research Center (ICRC).
Kamal Ranadive and her pioneer research on cancer and virus
After a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, she returned back (then Bombay) and the ICRC. It was here that she established India’s first tissue culture laboratory.
As the director of the ICRC and a pioneer in animal modelling of cancer development,
Not only this, Kamal Ranadive was one of the first researchers in India to propose a link between breast cancer and heredity. She was simultaneously also identifying the links among cancers and certain viruses.
Continuing her interesting journey, Ranadive studied Mycobacterium leprae, the bacterium that causes leprosy. This is how she contributed immensely to developing a vaccine.
In 1973, Dr Kamal Ranadive and 11 colleagues founded the Indian Women Scientists’ Association (IWSA) to support women in scientific fields.
Moreover, Kamal Ranadive encouraged her students and Indian scholars abroad to return to India and work for their communities.
She retired in 1989 and worked in rural communities in Maharashtra, training women as healthcare workers and providing health and nutrition education.
Today, the IWSA has 11 chapters in India; it provides scholarships and childcare options for women in science.
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