Shyamala Gopalan (December 7, 1938 – February 11, 2009) was a biomedical scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, whose work in isolating and characterizing the progesterone receptor gene has stimulated advances in breast biology and oncology. She was the mother of Kamala Harris (former Attorney General of California and Senator who became Vice President of the United States) and Maya Harris, a lawyer and political commentator. Early life and education Shyamala was born on December 7, 1938, in Madras, Madras Province, British India (present-day Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) to P. V. Gopalan, a civil servant, and Rajam, her mother. Her parents were from two villages near the town of Mannargudi in Madras Province. Gopalan had begun his professional life as a stenographer, and, as he rose through the ranks of the Imperial Secretariat Service and later Central Secretariat Service, he moved...