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Kamal Ranadive

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Kamal Ranadive
PB
Born
Kamal Samarath

(1917-11-08)8 November 1917
Poona, Bombay presidency, British India
(present day Pune, Maharashtra, India)
Died11 April 2001(2001-04-11) (aged 83)
Known forPioneering cancer research
Spouse
Jayasing Trimbak Ranadive
​
​
(m. 1939)​
AwardsPadma Bhushan
Scientific career
FieldsCell biology
InstitutionsCancer Research Centre and Tata Memorial Hospital

Kamal Jayasing Ranadive (née Samarath; 8 November 1917 – 11 April 2001) was an Indian biomedical researcher known for her research on the links between cancers and viruses. She was a founding member of the Indian Women Scientists' Association (IWSA).[1][2][3]

In the 1960s, she established India's first tissue culture research laboratory at the Indian Cancer Research Centre in Mumbai.[4][5]

Early life

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Ranadive was born in Pune on 8 November 1917. Her parents were Dinkar Dattatreya Samarath and Shantabai Dinkar Samarath. Her father was a biologist who taught at Fergusson College, Pune.[1] He ensured that all his children were well educated. Ranadive was a bright student. She had her schooling at the Huzurpaga: the H. H. C. P. High School.[2] Her father wanted her to study medicine and also marry a doctor, but she decided otherwise. She started her college education at Fergusson College with Botany and Zoology as her main subjects. She earned her Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree with distinction in 1934.[5] She then moved to the Agriculture College at Pune where she did her master's degree (M.Sc.) in 1943 with cytogenetics of annonaceae as the special subject. She then married J. T. Ranadive, a mathematician, on 13 May 1939 and moved to Bombay. They had a son, named Anil Jaysingh.[1]

In Bombay (now known as Mumbai), she worked at the Tata Memorial Hospital. Her husband, Ranadive, was a great help in her postgraduate studies in Cytology; this subject had been chosen by her father.[5] Here, she also worked for her doctoral degree (Doctor of Philosophy) at the Bombay University. Her guide was V. R. Khanolkar, a pathologist of repute and the founder of the Indian Cancer Research Centre (ICRC).[4][6] After she received her Ph.D. from the University of Bombay in 1949, she was encouraged by Khanolkar to seek a fellowship at an American University. She obtained a postdoctoral research fellowship to work on tissue culture techniques and work with George Gey (famous for his laboratory innovation, the HeLa cell line) in his laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.[4]

Professional career

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Ranadive, on her return to India, rejoined ICRC and started her professional career as a Senior Research Officer. She was instrumental in establishing Experimental Biology Laboratory and Tissue Culture Laboratory in Bombay.[7] From 1966 to 1970 she had assumed the mantle of the Director of the Indian Cancer Research Centre in an acting capacity.[8] In the early 1960s, she along with her assistants (whom she had inducted into ICRC) in the fields of biology and chemistry, developed tissue culture media and related reagents. She was also responsible for establishing new research units in Carcinogenesis, Cell biology and Immunology. Her career achievements include research on the pathophysiology of cancer through the medium of animals which led to a further appreciation of causes of diseases such as leukaemia, breast cancer and Esophageal cancer. Another notable achievement was in establishing a link to the susceptibility of cancer and hormones and tumour virus relationship. Evolution of the leprosy vaccine was a result of her basic research on the bacteria related to leprosy.[2] She was a great inspiration to Indian women scientists to work on cancer research, in particular on the subject cancer among women and children. One such project was on "Immunohematology of Tribal Blood" related to study of infants.[7]

Special studies

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When Ranadive was working for Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital in Bombay (which later became Cancer Research Centre)[9] in the department of pathology she reported on the research studies on the "Comparative morphology of normal mammary glands of four strains of mice varying in their susceptibility to breast cancer". In February 1945, she reported on the studies of cancer of the breast that had drawn special attention. She attempted to correlate the course of the disease with heredity, child-bearing, histological structure and other factors.[10] Malignancies of genetic origin in children and abnormal states of the blood, known as dyscrasias received her special attention.[9]

A major study that Ranadive and her team of the Satya Niketan (a voluntary organisation) of Ahmednagar undertook in 1989 was collection of data related to nutritional condition of tribal children in the Akola taluk of Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra.[11]

Ranadive also provided advice to women in the rural villages near Rajpur and Ahmednagar on health and medical care through government sponsored projects under the aegis of the Indian Women Association.[12]

Awards and honours

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Ranadive was awarded the Padma Bhushan (India's third highest civilian award) for Medicine, in 1982.[13] She was awarded the first Silver Jubilee Research Award 1964, of the Medical Council of India.[14] This award included a gold medal and a cash award of ₹15,000 (equivalent to ₹1.1 million or US$13,000 in 2023).[15] She was also awarded the G. J. Watumull Foundation Prize for 1964 in microbiology.[16]

She was an Emeritus Medical Scientist of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).[17]

Ranadive was honored with a Google Doodle on 8 November 2021, her 104th birthday.[18][19][20]

Papers published

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Ranadive published more than 200 scientific research papers on cancer and leprosy.[21] Some of the papers are: (1) Betel quid chewing and oral cancer: Experimental studies on hamsters;[22] (2) Effect of Urethan on Nucleic Acids;[23] (3) Influence of splenectomy on the development of leukemia in male mice of the ICRC strain;[24] (4) Characterisation of mammary tumour virus of strain ICRC mouse.[25]

References

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Citations

  1. ^ a b c Debus 1968, p. 1393.
  2. ^ a b c Bhisey 2008, pp. 24–26.
  3. ^ "Founder Members". Indian Women Scientists' Association. Archived from the original on 11 January 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  4. ^ a b c Bhisey 2008, p. 24-26.
  5. ^ a b c Varde 1997, p. 39.
  6. ^ Bhisey, R. "Obsessed with excellence" (PDF). Indian Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  7. ^ a b Shearer & Shearer 1997, pp. 3213–13.
  8. ^ Shearer & Shearer 1997, p. 3213.
  9. ^ a b Rockefeller Foundation 1952, p. 83.
  10. ^ Sciences 1946, p. 18.
  11. ^ CENDIT 1989, p. 91.
  12. ^ Salwi, Dilip M. "Indian Women Association In India". Vigyan Prasar. Archived from the original on 20 December 2014.
  13. ^ "Padma Bhushan Awardees". Archives of Government of India. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  14. ^ Roy 1970, p. 31.
  15. ^ Link. United India Periodicals. 1964.
  16. ^ IMDA Journal. All India Instrument Manufacturers & Dealers Association. 1965.
  17. ^ The Year book of the Indian National Science Academy. 1978.
  18. ^ "Dr. Kamal Ranadive's 104th Birthday". 8 November 2021.
  19. ^ Musil, Steven (7 November 2021). "Google Doodle celebrates pioneering Indian biologist Kamal Ranadive". CNET. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  20. ^ "Google honours biologist Kamal Ranadive with doodle". The Hindu. 8 November 2021. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  21. ^ "Time-Line of Historical Highlights". www.apa.org. Archived from the original on 12 May 2009. Retrieved 8 November 2021. Introduced tissue culture technology into India and co-founded the first Indian cancer research center. In her lifetime, Ranadive has published over 200 research papers on cancer and leprosy.
  22. ^ Ranadive, Kamal J.; Ranadive, S. N.; Shivapurkar, N. M.; Gothoskar, S. V. (1979). "Betel quid chewing and oral cancer: Experimental studies on hamsters". International Journal of Cancer. 24 (6): 835–843. doi:10.1002/ijc.2910240623. PMID 544535. S2CID 40177672.
  23. ^ Bhide, Sumati V.; Ranadive, Kamal J. (1966). "Effect of Urethan on Nucleic Acids". Nature. 211 (5044): 82–83. Bibcode:1966Natur.211...82B. doi:10.1038/211082a0. PMID 5967475. S2CID 4149900.
  24. ^ Pai, S.R.; Ranadive, Kamal J. (1971). "Influence of splenectomy on the development of leukemia in male mice of the ICRC strain". Life Sciences. 10 (8): 475–479. doi:10.1016/0024-3205(71)90310-9. PMID 5089344.
  25. ^ Karande, K.A.; Joshi, B.J.; Talageri, V.R.; Dumaswala, R.U.; Ranadive, Kamal J. (March 1978). "Characterisation of mammary tumour virus of strain ICRC mouse". European Journal of Cancer. 14 (3): 251–261. doi:10.1016/0014-2964(78)90188-3. PMID 204490.

Bibliography

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