Origins of a researcher

As an Indian growing up in apartheid South Africa, the issue of racism has always been a prevalent factor in Prof Soodyall's life. Listening to her speak, one can imagine that it is a major driving force behind her research into the origin of the human species.

She grew up in Durban, attending the Indian-only Ghandi Dessai High School before gaining her BSc in microbiology and biochemistry and her honours degree in microbiology at the University of Durban-Westville, at the time an Indian-only institution.

Science, she says, was never an overriding interest at school - it was more of a family expectation, especially as she showed an aptitude for it, particularly biology. 'It was inevitable that I would choose to do a basic science degree,' she says.

'The pressure was on me to take up a middle-class career so if push came to shove I could always do a teaching diploma as well and follow most of my family ( her mother, various aunts, uncles and cousins were all part of the teaching fraternity) in that direction.'

But her interest in genetics, aroused after spending time in libraries reading various articles in science magazines, pushed her in a different direction and, seeing a flyer advertising a masters degree in biotechnology at the University of the Witwatersrand, she sent in an application, got accepted and her long association with Wits University, where she completed both her masters and a PhD in human genetics, began.

When she arrived in Johannesburg to begin her studies in 1985, the only place she could live under the laws of the country at the time was an exclusively Indian area over 50 km from the university.

Instead she spent most of her graduate years living in a Hillbrow hotel, what was known as a 'grey' area, a 30 minute walk from the university.

'Graduate school was a difficult time for me,' she remembers, 'a huge learning curve. I had grown up under strict Indian religious dogma and philosophy, and had not had the chance to associate with people of other colours. Wits, in a class that was predominantly white, was a huge change for me.

'It was a cultural education as much as a scientific one and it was around this time that I started to question things a lot more, after being exposed to so many different environments, cultures and beliefs. It was difficult but it helped me to grow as an individual.'

She was interested in doing scientific research, but as an Indian woman in a world that was largely male and largely white, she didn't seem to fit in. Still, she landed a job at the National Health Laboratory under Professor Trefor Jenkins, who became her mentor and whom she eventually succeeded as director. Prof Soodyall also earned herself a fellowship to Pennsylvania State University.

'It was here that my path crossed with the famous Mark Stoneking, one of the authors of the original paper on the use of mitochondrial DNA in gene profiling and somewhat a hero of mine,' she says.

'And many other well-known geneticists too, because at Penn State at the time they had started the first institute in molecular evolutionary genetics. Being in an environment surrounded by people whose names I had read in the scientific literature was exciting and dynamic.

'It helped develop my personality in other ways too, because I was not viewed as just a non-white. I was an ordinary person, passionate about what I did and I gained the respect of my peers. It was a very special development in my life.

'It taught me that if I applied myself I could do anything that anyone else could do and I learned that no-one is superior to anyone else.'

The articles on this page and pages 18 - 19 were adapted from an article by Jon Craig Canavan that was originally published in January 2004 in African Scientist, a publication of the Human Sciences Research Council