Google Doodle honoured Dr Kamal Ranadive for her groundbreaking cancer research. Marking her 104th birth anniversary, the doodle was illustrated by India-based artist Ibrahim Rayintakath and shows Dr Ranadive looking at a microscope.

Kamal Samarath also better known as Kamal Ranadive was born in 1917 in Pune. In 1949, she received a doctorate in cytology, the study of cells, while working as a researcher in the Indian Cancer Research Center (ICRC). After a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, she returned to Mumbai (then Bombay) and the ICRC, where she established the country’s first tissue culture laboratory.

Ranadive proposed a link between breast cancer and heredity and to identify the links among cancers and certain viruses. In 1973, Dr Ranadive and 11 colleagues founded the Indian Women Scientists’ Association (IWSA) to support women in scientific fields.