Kamal Ranadive

Ph.D. (1949, Bombay), FNA. This recipient of the Padmabhushan established the first tissue culture laboratory in India at the Indian Cancer Research Centre (presently Cancer Research Institute). She got Watumal Foundation Award for her work in the field of leprosy. She founded the Indian Women Scientist Association (IWSA).

An excerpt from the publication "Obsessed with excellence":
"Kamal Samarth was born in Pune in 1917. Her father taught biology at Ferguson College, Pune and ensured that all his children, including his daughters, were well educated. Of all his children, Kamal was the brightest. She went to a girls high school ‘Huzurpaga: the H.H.C.P. High School for girls’ and studied botany at Ferguson College. Further she joined the Agriculture College, Pune where she worked on the cytogenetics of annoneacae for her Master’s degree. Following her marriage to J.T. Ranadive, Kamal Ranadive moved to Bombay close to Tata Memorial Hospital which brought her in contact with V.R Khanolkar, a renowned pathologist and great visionary, who founded the Indian Cancer Research Centre. Kamal worked under his guidance for the Ph.D. degree from the University of Bombay. After a post doctoral stint in the laboratory of George Gey who developed the HeLa cell line at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Kamal Ranadive returned to India and established the first tissue culture laboratory at the Indian Cancer Research Centre. In the early 1960s tissue culture media and other reagents had to be prepared in the laboratory. To fulfill these needs Dr Ranadive recruited a team of biologists and bio chemists."