Shyamala Gopalan

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Shyamala Gopalan
Shyamala Gopalan Harris died 2009.jpg
BornApril 7, 1938
Madras, Madras Presidency, British India (present-day Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India)
DiedFebruary 11, 2009(2009-02-11) (aged 70)
Oakland, California, U.S.
Other namesGopalan Shyamala, G. Shyamala
Education
Known forProgesterone receptor biology and applications to breast cancer
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 1963; div. 1971)​
Children
Parent(s)P. V. Gopalan (father)
Rajam Gopalan (mother)
Scientific career
Institutions
ThesisThe isolation and purification of a trypsin inhibitor from whole wheat flour (1964)
Doctoral advisorRichard L. Lyman[1]

Shyamala Gopalan (professionally, Gopalan Shyamala or G. Shyamala; April 7, 1938 – February 11, 2009) was an Indian American biomedical scientist born in British India, whose work in isolating and characterizing the progesterone receptor gene stimulated advances in breast biology and oncology.[2]

She was the mother of Kamala Harris, the Vice President-elect of the United States; and Maya Harris, a lawyer and political commentator.[3]

Early life and education[edit]

Shyamala was the daughter of an Indian civil servant, P. V. Gopalan and his wife, Rajam Gopalan. Both came from agrarian villages located close to each other near Mannargudi, in Tamil Nadu state in South India. Her father was from Thulasenthirapuram and Rajam was from Painganadu.[4][5] Gopalan began his professional life as a stenographer and as he rose through the ranks of the civil service, he moved the family every few years between Madras (now Chennai), New Delhi, Bombay (now Mumbai), and Calcutta (now Kolkata). [5] According to the Los Angeles Times, "Gopalan was a Tamil Brahmin, part of a privileged elite in Hinduism’s ancient caste hierarchy."[5]. He and Rajam had married in an arranged marriage; however, according to Shyamala's brother, Balachandran, in raising the children, their parents were broad-minded, and all of the children were to lead somewhat unconventional lives.[5] A gifted singer of South Indian classical music, Shyamala won a national competition in it as a teenager.[5]

Shyamala studied for a BSc in Home Science at Lady Irwin College in New Delhi, a leading women's college in India. Her father thought the subject—which taught skills considered to be helpful in homemaking—was a mismatch for her abilities; her mother expected the children to seek careers in medicine, engineering, or the law.[5] In 1958, aged 19, Shyamala unexpectedly applied to a masters program in nutrition and endocrinology at the University of California, Berkeley and was accepted. Her parents used some of their retirement savings to pay for her tuition and board during the first year.[5] Not having a phone line in their home, they communicated with her after her arrival in the US by writing aerograms. She eventually earned a PhD in nutrition and endocrinology at UC Berkeley in 1964.[5] Shyamala's dissertation, which was supervised by Richard L. Lyman,[1] was titled The isolation and purification of a trypsin inhibitor from whole wheat flour.[6]

Career[edit]

Shyamala conducted research in UC Berkeley's Department of Zoology and Cancer Research Lab. She worked as a breast cancer researcher at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Wisconsin. She worked for 16 years at Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University Faculty of Medicine. She served as a peer reviewer for the National Institutes of Health and as a site visit team member for the Federal Advisory Committee. She also served on the President's Special Commission on Breast Cancer. She mentored dozens of students in her lab. For her last decade of research, Shyamala worked in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.[7]

Research[edit]

Shyamala's research led to advancements in the knowledge of hormones pertaining to breast cancer.[8][2] Her work in the isolation and characterization of the progesterone receptor gene in mice changed research on the hormone-responsiveness of breast tissue.[2]

Personal life[edit]

In the fall of 1962, at a meeting of the Afro American Association—a students' group at Berkeley whose members would go on to give structure to the discipline of Black studies, propose the holiday of Kwanzaa, and help establish the Black Panther Party—Shyamala met a graduate student in economics from Jamaica, Donald J. Harris, who was that day's speaker.[9] According to Donald Harris, who is now an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University, “We talked then, continued to talk at a subsequent meeting, and at another, and another."[9] In 1963 they were married without following conventions of introducing Harris to Shyamala's parents beforehand or having the ceremony in her hometown in India.[5] In the later 1960s, Donald and Shyamala took their daughters, Kamala, then four or five years old, and Maya, two years younger, to newly independent Zambia, where Shyamala's father, Gopalan, was on an advisory assignment.[5] After Shyamala had divorced Donald in the early 1970s, she took her daughters several times to India to visit her parents in Chennai to which they had retired.[5][10]

The children also visited their father's family in Jamaica as they grew up.[11]

Wanda Kagan, one of Kamala's high school friends, in Montreal, described how when she told Kamala her step-father was molesting her, Shyamala insisted she move in with them, to complete her final year of high school.[12] Kagan said that Shyamala helped her navigate the system, to get the support she needed to live independent of her family.

Death[edit]

Shyamala died of colon cancer in Oakland on February 11, 2009.[2] In lieu of flowers, she requested that donations be made to the organization Breast Cancer Action.[2] Later in 2009, her daughter Kamala Harris carried her ashes to Chennai on the southeastern coast of peninsular India and scattered them in the Indian Ocean waters.[13]

Selected publications[edit]

  • Shyamala, G., Y.-C. Chou, S. G. Louie, R. C. Guzman, G. H. Smith, and S. Nandi. 2002. "Cellular expression of estrogen and progesterone receptors in mammary glands: Regulation by hormones, development and aging", Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 80:137–48.
  • Shyamala, G.; Yang, X.; Cardiff, R. D.; Dale, E. (2000). "Impact of progesterone receptor on cell-fate decisions during mammary gland development". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 97 (7): 3044–49
  • Shyamala, G. 1999. "Progesterone signaling and mammary gland morphogenesis". Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and Neoplasia, 4:89–104.
  • Shyamala, G., S. G. Louie, I. G. Camarillo, and F. Talamantes. 1999. The progesterone receptor and its isoforms in mammary development. Mol. Genet. Metab. 68:182–90.
  • Shyamala, G.; Yang, X.; Silberstein, G.; Barcellos-Hoff, M. H.; Dale, E. (1998). "Transgenic mice carrying an imbalance in the native ratio of A to B forms of progesterone receptor exhibit developmental abnormalities in mammary glands". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 95 (2): 696–701.
  • Shyamala, G., W. Schneider, and D. Schott. 1990. Developmental regulation of murine mammary progesterone receptor gene expression. Endocrinology 126:2882–89.
  • Shyamala, G; Gauthier, Y; Moore, S K; Catelli, M G; Ullrich, S J (August 1989). "Estrogenic regulation of murine uterine 90-kilodalton heat shock protein gene expression". Molecular and Cellular Biology. 9 (8): pp. 3567–70. ISSN 0270-7306.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Gopalan, Shyamala (1964). The isolation and purification of a trypsin inhibitor from whole-wheat flour. University of California.
  2. ^ a b c d e "In Memoriam: Dr. Shyamala G. Harris". Breast Cancer Action. June 21, 2009. Retrieved January 23, 2019.
  3. ^ Cadelago, Christopher; Oprysko, Caitlin (August 11, 2020). "Biden picks Kamala Harris as VP nominee". Politico. Retrieved August 31, 2020.
  4. ^ "As Kamala Harris inches closer to victory, Tamil Nadu's twin villages prepare for early Deepavali". The New Indian Express. November 7, 2020. Retrieved November 7, 2020.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Bengali, Shashank; Mason, Melanie (October 25, 2019), "The progressive Indian grandfather who inspired Kamala Harris", Los Angeles Times, retrieved April 24, 2020
  6. ^ Shyamala, Gopalan (1964). The isolation and purification of a trypsin inhibitor from whole-wheat flour. UC Berkeley. Note: last name and first name are listed swapped.
  7. ^ "Dr. G. Shyamala". crea.berkeley.edu. Retrieved January 23, 2019.
  8. ^ Carson, Susan (June 21, 1985). "Men still dominate the scientific field". The Gazette. Montreal. p. 27. Retrieved January 23, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ a b Barry, Ellen (September 13, 2020), "How Kamala Harris's Immigrant Parents Found a Home, and Each Other, in a Black Study Group", New York Times, retrieved September 13, 2020
  10. ^ Finnegan, Michael (September 30, 2015). "How race helped shape the politics of Senate candidate Kamala Harris". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 1, 2018.
  11. ^ Dolan, Casey (February 10, 2019). "How Kamala Harris' immigrant parents shaped her life—and her political outlook". The Mercury News. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  12. ^ "Kamala Harris's friend reacts to her historic win". CBC News. November 7, 2020. Archived from the original on November 7, 2020. Retrieved November 7, 2020.
  13. ^ Gettleman, Jeffrey; Raj, Suhasini (August 16, 2020). "How Kamala Harris's Family in India Helped Shape Her Values". New York Times. Retrieved August 17, 2020.


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