Working to earn a doctoral degree can be daunting enough, with the long hours of research and teaching that go along with it. It becomes even more difficult when a loved one is critically ill and living more that 7,000 miles away.

That is the situation that confronted Yamini Sabherwal, who will receive her doctorate. in biology at Temple’s 120th Commencement on May 17.

Sabherwal, 28, came to Temple in the fall of 2002 to earn a master’s degree in biology. She earned her degree in two years and with encouragement from her faculty advisor, Biology and Neuroscience Professor George Tuszynski, she entered the doctoral program in the fall of 2004 to study the angiogenesis of tumor cells.

That’s when she received the news from home. Her father, Sashi, had been diagnosed with gastro-esophageal cancer.

“My family doesn’t have any science background, so they called me and said my dad had to get an operation done, and it was really major because the doctors had to do it in a week,” recalled Sabherwal, the second of three children.

“I asked them what was so important that it had to be done in a week, and I asked them to read my dad’s medical report to me.

“My mom didn’t know what metastasis meant, because it said clearly in the report that he had a fairly large metastatic tumor,” she said. “It was very hard for me because I was studying this, and I couldn’t even help my family at the time. If I had been there, things might have been different; we might have been able to catch it at an earlier stage.”

For about a year, her family had told her that her father had either not been eating or when he did eat, he was vomiting. But it never occurred to her that he might have cancer, and she attributed his symptoms to some gastric trouble since her father loved to eat spicy foods.

Following the news, she quickly lost focus on her studies — “Every time the phone rang, I thought it was going to be something bad,” she said.

Tuszynski, who had lost his mother to colon cancer, understood what Sabherwal was going through and suggested she go home to be with her family as her father faced surgery. She arrived home right before his six-hour operation in November 2004.

Within two months, her father had recovered from his operation, and he came to Philadelphia in the winter of 2005 to visit his daughter.

“I knew he had a short time left, but I didn’t want to tell him that, and I wanted him to spend time with me here and see what I was doing so he would feel better,” said Sabherwal, who has received a postdoctoral position in Thomas Jefferson University’s Kimmel Cancer Center. “When he was home in India he was always sick, but when he was here, he never felt sick at all.”

Sabherwal taught two days a week at Temple as part of a teaching assistantship, worked in Tuszynski’s lab and took night classes at Temple’s Fort Washington Campus. But it was beginning to add a financial strain to the stress she was already feeling with her father’s illness.

Sabherwal had to begin borrowing money that she said she still hasn’t paid back to people.

Then, in the fall of 2005, it became clear that the cancer had spread to different parts of her father’s body and he needed to undergo chemotherapy.

Tuszynski again encouraged Sabherwal to take time off and be with her family. “He told me that more than anything, even the medicine, the best thing for my dad was having people around him, and me being there with him would be something I would never regret,” she said.

Because she had to keep taking time off from her studies, Sabherwal began to believe she would not be able to complete her doctorate. But Tuszynksi made sure to keep her updated through e-mails, sending her papers that he was about to present and asking for her reviews on them. “He always kept me updated; he didn’t let me lose touch with things.”

Sabherwal’s father succumbed to the cancer in January 2006, leaving a void in her life, especially when she finally returned to Temple that March.

“I spoke to my dad every day when I was here,” she said. “It was like a friend had been lost. I couldn’t speak to my family about that because I was supposed to support them, and if I started to cry, then they would not be able to hold up.”

Although it was difficult at first, she returned to her studies and has earned her doctorate with the help and guidance of Tuszynski.

“Dr. Tuszynski has been like another father to me here, he has been so helpful,” Sabherwal said. “He has inspired me so much, I’m in the field I’m in today.”