Renowned scientist and BRIT chief Dr S Gangadharan passes away

He was the discoverer of a new isotope Cadmium-113 with a half life of 90 billion years which was cited in the Guinness Book of World Records in the science section

He was also the founder director of his brainchild National Centre for Compositional Characterisation of Materials at Hyderabad, a unique facility with metal free, ultra clean laboratories for preparation of ultra pure `special material’.

Gangadharan, set up the first Crime Investigation Unit of BARC. According to BARC scientists his contribution to the National Forensic Science programme was immense.

According to Chief executive of BRIT, Dr N Ramamurthy, he was an excellent leader and programme builder in gamma radiation processing technique. One such facility is the Spice Irradiator set up in Navi Mumbai.

He also introduced the ROLI-I camera (the depleteduranium based radiography camera capable of handling higher level radiactivity and user friendly in high altitude) which is currently in wide use.

He is survived by his wife and three sons.

Gangadharan had joined BARC in 1960, a post graduate from Dras University, did his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, USA with a specialisation in Nuclear Analytical chemistry, Forensic Science and Archaelogy.

Gangadharan had been closely associated with the International Atomic Energy Agency for more than two decades. In addition to being a technical Expert to Thailand (1973) and Zaire(1990), he was the Regional Programmes National Co-ordinator (1994-97).

He was the assocaite Director, Analytical Chemistry Group of BARC before he took over as Chief Executive of BRIT of the Department of Atomic Energy in 1994.

He had been actively associated with several professional bodies and served as the President of Indian Chemical Society, Indian Society of Analytical scientists and National Association for Applications for Radioisotopes and Radiation Industry (1998-2000).