Thiruvenkata Rajendra Seshadri

Thiruvengadam Rajendram Seshadri FNA, FRS was an Indian chemist, academic, writer and the Head of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Delhi, known for his researches on the Indian medicinal and other plants. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, UK and an elected member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Besides several articles, he also published two books, Chemistry of Vitamins and Hormones and Advancement of Scientific and Religious Culture in India. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1963, for his contributions to Science.

Biography Money and materials alone do not secure good research, they are only adjuncts and it is the human element behind them that matters, said T. R. Seshadri. He secured a scholarship from the state government in 1927 for higher studies at University of Manchester where he did his doctoral research under the guidance of the renowned British chemist and Nobel Laureate, Robert Robinson, to secure a PhD in 1929. He was a colleague of K. Venkataraman. His researches at Manchester were focused on the development of anti-malarial drugs and synthesis of compounds.

Back in India, he continued his work on plant chemistry as a research scholar of the University of Madras at Government College of Agriculture, Coimbatore where he stayed for four years.

Legacy Some of the notable contributions of Seshadri are on the academic administration front. As the head of the Chemistry department at Andhra University, he was instrumental in the establishment of several laboratories, two new departments and a research school. He founded another research school at Delhi University which soon became a centre of excellence in chemical research, under the name Centre for Advanced Study for the Chemistry of Natural Products where he served as the head from 1949 to 1975. He is credited with pioneering research on plant chemistry, primarily in oxygen heterocyclics, and contributed to the isolation and structural elucidation of flavanoid pigments. and two books, Chemistry of Vitamins and Hormones and was a member of the editorial boards of the Indian Journal of Chemistry and two international journals, Tetrahedron and Phytochemistry. and Royal Society, London in 1960.