Shamala Pai obtained her PhD (1961) from University of Bombay under the guidance of Dr. V. R. Khanolkar, a pathologist of repute and the founder of the Indian Cancer Research Centre (ICRC). She worked as a visiting Associate in the Carcinogen Screening section of NCI’s Carcinogenesis Studies Branch (1962-1964) in collaboration with scientists from NIH. She conducted studies on hormonal factors in rats treated with a chemical carcinogen causing liver tumors. These studies demonstrated the direct effect of pituitary hormones in liver carcinogenesis. This success opened up an entire field of investigation. She made significant contribution to understand the complex factors involved in liver cancer. An application of these studies is the testing of other carcinogens which are time-consuming to detect with presently available techniques because of their low potency. She was the Ex. Vice-President, Bombay City Council for Child welfare.

Veronica Rodrigues obtained her PhD (1981) from TIFR, Mumbai. She went on to obtain a post-doctoral training from Max-Planck Institut Fur Biologische Kybernetik, Tuebingen, Germany. She pioneered the study of coding of olfactory information in the brain. She showed that information about odors is encoded as pattern of activation across neurons within the olfactory lobe of Drosophila. She returned to join TIFR again in 1985. In her laboratory, she worked to understand how chemosensory circuits develop to allow complex function and what are the ways using which circuits can be modified to adapt to a varying environment. She received the Senior National Woman Bio scientist Award (2004), the Golden Jubilee Commemoration Medal (Biological Sciences) (2004) by INSA, the National Woman Bioscience Award (2004) and the JC Bose Fellowship (2007).