Thavamani Jegajothivel Pandian (born 15 June 1939), a retired professor of

Madurai Kamaraj University Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU) is a public state university located in Madurai city, in southern Tamil Nadu, India, established in 1966. MKU is one of the 15 universities in India with the University with Potential for Excellence status, wh ...

(MKU), is an Indian geneticist and ecologist, known for his pioneering studies in bioenergetics and

animal ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps w ...

. A recipient of the

WorldFish WorldFish is an international nonprofit research institution that creates and translates scientific research on aquatic food systems. WorldFish is a member of CGIAR, which unites international organizations engaged in research about food secur ...

Naga Award, he is a former chairman of the ''Task Force Committee on Aqua and Marine Biotechnology'' of the

Department of Biotechnology The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) is an Indian government department, under the Ministry of Science and Technology responsible for administrating development and commercialisation in the field of modern biology and biotechnology in India. It ...

of the Government of India, a former president and a fellow of

The World Academy of Sciences The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) is a merit-based science academy established for developing countries, uniting 1,000 scientists in some 70 countries. Its principal aim is to promote scientific capacity and excellence for sustainable deve ...

and an elected fellow of the

Indian National Science Academy The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) is a national academy in New Delhi for Indian scientists in all branches of science and technology. In August 2019, Dr. Chandrima Shaha was appointed as the president of Indian National Science Acade ...

National Academy of Sciences, India The National Academy of Sciences, India, established in 1930, is the oldest science academy in India. It is located in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. Prof. Meghnad Saha was the founder president. Fellows *Suddhasatwa Basu * Sudha Bhattacharya * Ch ...

Indian Academy of Sciences The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore was founded by Indian Physicist and Nobel Laureate C. V. Raman, and was registered as a society on 24 April 1934. Inaugurated on 31 July 1934, it began with 65 founding fellows. The first general meet ...

and the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The

Council of Scientific and Industrial Research The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research ( IAST: ''vaigyanik tathā audyogik anusandhāna pariṣada''), abbreviated as CSIR, was established by the Government of India in September 1942 as an autonomous body that has emerged as the ...

, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology (SSB) is a science award in India given annually by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for notable and outstanding research, applied or fundamental, in biology, ...

, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1984, for his contributions to biological sciences.

Biography

Thavamani Jegajothivel Pandian, born on 15 June 1929 in

Palamedu Palamedu is a panchayat town in Madurai district, Indian state of Tamil Nadu Geography Palamedu is located at . It has an average elevation of 227 metres (744 feet) Demographics India census, Palamedu had a population of 8187. Males ...

, a small town in

Madurai district Madurai district is one of the 38 districts of the state of Tamil Nadu in southeastern India., United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency The city of Madurai serves as the district headquarters. It houses the famous Sri Meenaksh ...

of the

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territ ...

n state of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

to Kumarasamy Thavamani and Valliammal couple, graduated in science from Thiagarajar College,

Madurai Madurai ( , also , ) is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Madurai District. As of the 2011 census, it was the third largest Urban agglomeration in ...

in 1960 and completed his master's degree from

Presidency College, Chennai Presidency College is an art, commerce, and science college in the city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, India. On 16 October 1840, this school was established as the Madras Preparatory School before being repurposed as a high school, and then a gra ...

in 1962, both the colleges affiliated to

Madras University The University of Madras (informally known as Madras University) is a public state university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and among the most prestigious universities in India, incorporated by an a ...

, before securing a doctoral degree (PhD) in 1965 from the same university. His post-doctoral studies were at Bilogische Anstalt, Helgoland, Germany and he obtained the degree of Doctor of Natural Sciences ( Dr. rer. nat.) from

Kiel University Kiel University, officially the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, (german: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in ...

in 1968. Returning to India, he started his career at

Bangalore University Bangalore University (BU) is a public state university located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The university is a part of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and affiliated by Univer ...

as a lecturer in 1968 and moved to his home town in 1971 to join

as a reader where he served till his superannuation, holding positions of a professor (1976–92) and a senior professor (1994–95). In between, he served as a visiting scientist at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

(1973), as a visiting professor at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and University of South Carolina (1981–82), as an overseas associate at Kyoto University (1989) and as a UNESCO lecturer at

Ghent University Ghent University ( nl, Universiteit Gent, abbreviated as UGent) is a public research university located in Ghent, Belgium. Established before the state of Belgium itself, the university was founded by the Dutch King William I in 1817, when th ...

(2003–04). Post his superannuation, he held the position of a National Professor of the

Indian Council of Agricultural Research The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is an autonomous body responsible for co-ordinating agricultural education and research in India. It reports to the Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Ministry of Agriculture. Th ...

from 1996 to 2002, an Emeritus Scientist of the

from 2002 to 2005 and an

INSA The Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) is a non-profit, nonpartisan 501(c)(6) professional organization based in Arlington Virginia for public and private sector members of the United States Intelligence Community. History ...

senior scientist from 2005 to 2009. He has chaired the ''Task Force Committee on Aqua and Marine Biotechnology'' of the

and is associated with Ecology Institute, Germany as a visiting scientist since 1985 and with

MS Swaminathan Research Foundation The M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) is a nonprofit NGO trust based in Chennai, India. It develops and promotes strategies for economic growth that directly target increased employment of poor women in rural areas. Their methods maxi ...

as a visiting professor since 1996. He also served the councils of the Indian National Science Academy in 1990 and National Academy of Agricultural Sciences from 1998 to 2000. Pandian is married to Muthu Shanthakumari and the couple has a son, Sathish Kinne Pandian who is a urologist. The family lives in Madurai.

Legacy

Pandian's early work was in the field of bioenergetics and focusing on metabolism, he developed a model for predicting the transformation of food energy into growth. He published his research findings in ''Marine Biology'' journal of

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

in an article, ''Intake, digestion, absorption and conversion of food in the fishes Megalops cyprinoides and Ophiocephalus striatus'', which eventually became a citation classic. Subsequently, shifting his attention to the sexuality of fish, he demonstrated that the sperm survived in

catfish Catfish (or catfishes; order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the three largest species alive ...

for over 240 days if they were preserved at -20^o degree Celsius and could still be fertilized, a discovery which had commercial relevance in places where liquid nitrogen is not easily available. Later, he created the first

transgenic A transgene is a gene that has been transferred naturally, or by any of a number of genetic engineering techniques, from one organism to another. The introduction of a transgene, in a process known as transgenesis, has the potential to change the ...

fish from preserved sperm and genome-inactivated eggs of compatible species which helped him to generate ''interspecific and intergeneric androgenetic clones''. Furthering the researches, he created ''supermales'' (with YY chromosomes) of

tilapia Tilapia ( ) is the common name for nearly a hundred species of cichlid fish from the coelotilapine, coptodonine, heterotilapine, oreochromine, pelmatolapiine, and tilapiine tribes (formerly all were "Tilapiini"), with the economically most ...

, barbs and

guppies The guppy (), also known as millionfish and rainbow fish, is one of the world's most widely distributed tropical fish and one of the most popular freshwater aquarium fish species. It is a member of the family Poeciliidae and, like almost all ...

(Poecilia reticulata) and ''superfemales'' (ZZ) in molly (

Poecilia sphenops ''Poecilia sphenops'' is a species of fish, of the genus ''Poecilia'', known under the common name molly; to distinguish it from its congeners, it is sometimes called short-finned molly or common molly. They inhabit fresh water streams and coas ...

) species, reportedly for the first time in India. He used these monosex organisms to mass-produce monosex progenies in catfish. He is also credited with the cloning and production of fish-based ''

growth hormone Growth hormone (GH) or somatotropin, also known as human growth hormone (hGH or HGH) in its human form, is a peptide hormone that stimulates growth, cell reproduction, and cell regeneration in humans and other animals. It is thus important in h ...

gene transformation vectors'' and with the restoration of

rosy barb The rosy barb (''Pethia conchonius'') is a subtropical freshwater cyprinid fish found in southern Asia from Afghanistan to Bangladesh. Description This pinkish fish species of barb grows up to 6 inches (14 cm) in length. Their colo ...

species using preserved sperms and genome-inactivated eggs of

tiger barb The tiger barb or Sumatra barb (''Puntigrus tetrazona''),Kottelat, M. (2013)The Fishes of the Inland Waters of Southeast Asia: A Catalogue and Core Bibliography of the Fishes Known to Occur in Freshwaters, Mangroves and Estuaries. ''The Raffle ...

. His researches are documented in a number of books which include ''Animal Energetics: Bivalvia through reptilia'', ''Animal Energetics: Protozoa through insecta'', ''Sex Determination in Fish'', ''Genetic Sex Differentiation in Fish'', ''Environmental Sex Differentiation in Fish'' and ''Reproduction and Development in Crustacea'', and over 250 science articles; ResearchGate, an online repository of scientific papers, has listed 133 of them. Pandian was one among the biologists who founded the Asian Fisheries Society (AFS), a non-profit scientific society for the promotion of fisheries and aquaculture, in 1984 and sat in its fourth council from 1992 to 1995. He is a former member of the governing body of the

and the academic councils of the

Jawaharlal Nehru University Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is a public major research university located in New Delhi, India. It was established in 1969 and named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The university is known for leading faculties and r ...

and the

Central Institute of Fisheries Education The Central Institute of Fisheries Education (CIFE) is a Deemed to be a University and institution of higher learning for fisheries science in Mumbai, India. CIFE has over four decades of leadership in human resource development with its alumn ...

. He has been associated with several science journals including ''Journal of Asian Fisheries Science'', Hydrobiologia,

Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology The ''Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology'' is a peer-reviewed bimonthly journal which publishes work on the biochemistry, physiology, behaviour, and genetics of marine plants and animals in relation to their ecology. According to th ...

Marine Ecology Progress Series The ''Marine Ecology Progress Series'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers all aspects of marine ecology. History The journal was founded by Otto Kinne. Its original concept was based on ''Marine Ecology'', also once edited by Kin ...

, ''Indian Journal of Marine Sciences'' and ''Journal of Scientific and Industrial Research'' and is a former associate editor of

Current Science ''Current Science'' is an English-language peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It was established in 1932 and is published by the Current Science Association along with the Indian Academy of Sciences. According to the ''Journal C ...

, consultant editor of ''Korean Journal of Aquaculture'' and a guest editor of Current Science and Hydrobiologia. He coordinated the USERS Project of the Department of Science and Technology during 2012–14 and has mentored 36 scholars in their doctoral researches. He is also a Member of the Governing Council and an Advisor of the ''Centre for Scientific & Applied Research'' of PSN College of Engineering and Technology,

Tirunelveli Tirunelveli (, ta, திருநெல்வேலி, translit=Tirunelveli) also known as Nellai ( ta, நெல்லை, translit=Nellai) and historically (during British rule) as Tinnevelly, is a major city in the Indian state of Tam ...

and the ''Inspire Internship Camp'' of Velammal Institute of Technology, Panchetti and he has attended several seminars and conferences to deliver keynote addresses, notably the National Seminar on Sustainability of Seafood Production in 2006 and the CSIR Foundation Day lecture in 2012.

Awards and honors

Pandian, who held the National Lectureship and the National Fellowship of the

University Grants Commission of India University Grants Commission (UGC) is a statutory body set up by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Government of India in accordance to the UGC Act 1956 and is charged with coordination, determination and maintenanc ...

during 1985–86 and 1989–91 respectively, received the Hooker Award of the

Indian Agricultural Research Institute The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), commonly known as the Pusa Institute, is India's national institute for agricultural research, education and extension. The name Pusa Institute is derived from the fact that the institute was or ...

in 1978. The

awarded him the

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology (SSB) is a science award in India given annually by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for notable and outstanding research, applied or fundamental, in biology, ...

, one of the highest Indian science awards in 1984 for his contributions to bioenergetics and animal ecology. The next year, he received the ECI Prize of the Ecology Institute where he has been serving as an adviser since then.

awarded him the Naga Award in 1991 and three years later, he received the 1994 K.N. Bahl Memorial Gold Medal of the Society of Biosciences, Delhi. The

selected him as National Professor in 1996 and the Council for Science and Technology of the Government of Tamil Nadu chose him for the Tamil Nadu Scientist Award in 1997. Pandian is an elected fellow of a number of major Indian science academies. The

elected him as a fellow in 1984 and he became a fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, the next year. Two years later, he was elected as a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, which was followed by his election as fellow by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 1992. In 1999, he received the fellowship of

Selected bibliography

Books

* * * * * * * * *

Articles

* * * * * *

Notes

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pandian, Thavamani Jegajothivel Recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Biological Science 1939 births Living people Indian marine biologists Indian geneticists Indian ecologists Indian botanical writers Indian scientific authors Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy Fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences Fellows of The National Academy of Sciences, India Fellows of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences TWAS fellows People from Madurai district Presidency College, Chennai alumni University of Madras alumni University of Kiel alumni Academic staff of Bangalore University Madurai Kamaraj University Academics of the University of Oxford Columbia University faculty University of South Carolina faculty Academic staff of Kyoto University Academic staff of Ghent University Indian Council of Agricultural Research Council of Scientific and Industrial Research Aquaculture in India 20th-century Indian biologists Scientists from Tamil Nadu