Toppur Seethapathy Sadasivan

Toppur Seethapathy Sadasivan (May 22, 1913 – August 18, 2001) was an Indian plant pathologist, academic and the director of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Botany of the University of Madras. He was the founder of the School of Physiological Plant Pathology at Madras University and was a recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the highest Indian award in the science category. He was an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and Indian Botanical Society and an elected member of the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1974, for his contributions to science.

Biography

Toppur Sadasivan was born on 22 May 1913, at Saidapet, a satellite town in Madras, Madras Presidency, to Kanakammal and her physician husband, Seethapathy, who was the first Indian director of the King Institute of Preventive Medicine and Research. His schooling was at P. S. Senior Secondary School after which he graduated in Botany from the Presidency College, Chennai in 1934. Moving to Lucknow, he secured his master's degree from Lucknow University, studying under the tutelage of Birbal Sahni, a known paleobotanist, and started his doctoral research under S. N. Das Gupta. However, he continued his research at the University of London under the guidance of F. C. Bauwden and S. D. Garret, to secure a PhD in 1940 and worked at the Rothamsted Experiment Station (present-day Rothamsted Research), Harpenden on plant virology and soil mycology for a while before returning to Punjab Agricultural College, Lyallpur (present-day University of Agriculture, Faisalabad) to start his career as a microbiologist, in 1941. Soon, he shifted to the University Botany Laboratory (UBL) of the University of Madras, and took up the position of a Reader, to eventually succeed M. O. P. Iyengar as its Director in 1944. He developed several concepts such as competitive saprophytic ability and Rhizosphere effect and these studies were utilized by the Indian taxonomist, C. V. Subramanian, in his classification of Hyphomycetes. His group collectively published over 600 articles to document their research findings. Under his directorship, UBL became a University Grants Commission-accredited Centre for Advanced Study He also established the School of Physiological Plant Pathology at Madras University and served as a consultant to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) on plant-based laboratories. He also sat in the council of the Indian National Science Academy during various terms (1958–59, 1962–64, 1971–73) and was the chairman of the governing council of the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, also serving the institute as the Birbal Sahni Professor from 1977 to 1980. the same year as he received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the highest Indian award in the science and technology category, making him the first recipient of the award in the Biological Sciences category. He was also an elected fellow of the Indian Botanical Society and the Indian Phytopathological Society

Trivia Sadasivan was reported to have donated a part of his property in Kodaikanal to Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan for establishing a school where he served as the chairman for nearly fifteen years. He was known to have had a fascination for photography. He wore Khadi and used to wash his own clothes till his health failed a month before his death.