Thyaga Rajan

[Eliecer Brathwaite]

Thiagarajan Sivanandam (born 21 June 1946) is an Indian actor, director and producer in Tamil cinema. Besides Tamil, he has acted in several Malayalam and Kannada films and a few Telugu films. He is the father of Tamil actor Prashanth, son-in-law of actor-director Peketi Sivaram and the maternal uncle of Tamil actor Vikram.[2][3]

Basically a businessman, Thiagarajan made his acting debut with Alaigal Oivathillai (1981), appearing as the elder brother of the film's lead actress Radha.[4] The film became successful and offers poured in for him.[5]

He acted in the Malayalam film New Delhi, which became successful and his portrayal of a goon received acclaim. The success of the film prompted Thiagarajan to make his directorial debut titled Salem Vishnu (1990), based on the character which he had played in that film. He then directed Aanazhagan (1995), with his son Prashanth in the leading role. According to Prashanth, the film was an average grosser.[6]

Thiagarajan then stayed away from the limelight, paving the way for his son. He later returned to acting, appearing in a small role as a father to his son in Jai.[7] Thiagarajan then directed Shock, remake of the Hindi film Bhoot in 2004. Apart from directing and producing the film, Thiagarajan handled the art and costumes department and also appeared in the film as police inspector. The film's shoot was completed in twenty-six days, with meticulous pre-planning arranged by Thiagarajan.[8] The film received positive reviews citing that the makers "deserve an appreciation for his honest and sincere attempt on the screen".[9]

In September 2004, Thiagarajan launched Police, a remake of the Hindi film Khakee and the film received coverage from the media after producers had approached Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai for key roles. In interviews during the period, Thiagarajan mentioned the grand scale of the project, citing that schedules would also be shot abroad; however the film failed to progress.[10] He then returned to acting with the films Bodyguard (2010) and Drohi (2010).[11]

In early 2007, Thiagarajan approached M. Karunanidhi with the intention of making a film on his adaptation of the Ponnar Shankar epic that he had written in the late 1970s. The latter accepted Thiagarajan's offer and approved of his decision to cast his son Prashanth, in the dual lead role.[12] The film was released in 2011 to mixed reviews and did average business.[13] He directed Mambattiyan (2011), a remake of his successful 1983 film in which he had acted. His son played the title role. The film received mixed reviews by critics, it took a good opening at the box office, but petered out to do average business commercially and due to its big budget, it failed to recover costs.[14]

Rama Thyagarajan, M.D., is board-certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases. In addition to her appointment at Dell Medical School, she provides infectious diseases care at Dell Seton Medical Center. Her clinical interest focuses on improving patient outcomes related to infections acquired in the hospital and implementing processes to facilitate responsible antimicrobial use in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities.

Additionally, Thyagarajan serves as chair of the Texas Department of State Health Services Public Health Region 7 Antimicrobial Stewardship Regional Advisory Committee, a collaborative statewide program to facilitate responsible antimicrobial use, helping limit spread of antimicrobial resistant pathogens in Texas. Thyagarajan is also a faculty work group member of American Medical Association Project Firstline, a collaborative effort with the Centers for Diseases Control that serves as a national infection control training program for timely and relevant education all health care personnel.

Prior to Dell Med, Thyagarajan was a physician leader at Beaumont Health, the largest health care system in Michigan. At Beaumont Health, she served as clinical chief of the Infection Prevention and Epidemiology Clinical Care Program and corporate medical director of infection prevention and epidemiology. In Beaumont Hospital in Dearborn, Michigan, Thyagarajan served as the medical director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program and led epidemiology and infection prevention efforts for 15 years.

Dr. Thyagarajan is director of the Division of Molecular Pathology and Genomics and director of the Advanced Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (ARDL). The MDL processes some 25,000 specimens annually related to inherited and infectious diseases, bone marrow engraftment, and blood and solid tumor malignancies. Thyagarajan and his MDL colleagues are implementing next-generation DNA sequencing (NGS) for diagnosing genetic disease.The MDL has the capacity to test some 5,000 genes implicated in monogenic disorders with the goal of testing all the genes in the human genome (>20,000) and has implemented DNA sequence-based tumor diagnostics. MDL clinicians have issued hundreds of patient molecular pathology reports based on individual genetic tests and expect that pace of reporting to increase as NGS technology is mainstreamed into clinical medicine. Thyagarajan's team collaborates in this effort with the University of Minnesota Genomics Center, which produces the raw sequence from DNA extracted from clinical samples, and the bioinformatics group at the Minnesota Supercomputing Center, which puts the raw sequence data in a readable format from which clinicians can interpret the diagnostic and prognostic value of genetic variants.At ARDL, Dr. Thyagarajan is principal laboratory investigator for the Hispanic Community Health Study, an NIH-funded multicenter epidemiologic study of Hispanic/Latino populations, and the NIH-funded Long Life Family Study, an international collaborative study of the genetics and familial components of exceptional survival, longevity, and healthy aging. Thyagarajan's personal research program focuses on the role of mitochondria in breast and colorectal cancer.

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Dr. Thyagarajan is a board-certified family medicine physician. She believes in open and honest communication with individuals. She strives to provide education and guidance to help individuals take charge of their own health.

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Dr. Thyagarajan is director of the Division of Molecular Pathology and Genomics, and a faculty investigator in the Advanced Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (ARDL). The MDL processes some 25,000 specimens annually related to inherited and infectious diseases, bone marrow engraftment, and blood and solid tumor malignancies. Thyagarajan and his MDL colleagues are implementing next-generation DNA sequencing (NGS) for diagnosing genetic disease.

After teaching chemistry in India, he became a visiting professor at the University of Southern California in 1965. He later became a senior professor of organic chemistry at the University of Idaho. He also lectured in both Japan and England on his specialty, sulfur chemistry.

In 1974, his life took a pivotal turn when he became the founding director of the Division of Earth and Physical Sciences at the newly created UTSA. "I was given the opportunity to start not one but three science programs: chemistry, physics and geology", he later recalled.

And for the next 26 years, as UTSA grew to become a university of almost 20,000 students, Thyagarajan taught and mentored both undergraduate and graduate chemistry students. Drawn by his reputation, postdoctoral students came from around the world, including England, Egypt, Greece, India, Japan and Korea.

Beyond the brilliance of his research and thinking, Thyagarajan had an unusual gift for teaching. He was able to stand at the board and take apart a chemical reaction so that anyone, even those without a chemistry background, could understand it, recalled Blair Andera, 51, who took chemistry classes from him in the 1990s.

Andera, who graduated from UTSA in 1998, eventually came to see Thyagarajan as a friend and mentor. "It became more than chemistry. It became philosophy, religion, politics, all aspects of life", he said, "He held truth like it was gold. Sometimes it was hurtful, but it was honest."

Many years ago, Thyagarajan created scholarship programs for chemistry, geology and physics students at UTSA, and for nursing students at the University of Texas Health Science Center. More recently, he established The St. Francis-Professor Thyagarajan Foundation to assist a wider pool of students. "He was a great admirer of St. Francis, who was kind to animals and people", said Andera, who helped with the project.

Siddharth Thyagarajan is a Senior Project Associate at World Resources Institute India, within the Urban Development Team at the Sustainable Cities and Transport program. His work focuses on urban placemaking, street safety and design, nature-based solutions and transit-oriented development.

Prior to this, Siddharth has worked on projects within varying scales and typologies such as master planning, urban design, climate responsive architecture and community engagement across diverse global contexts such as India, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Belgium and Portugal.

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