Academic literature on the topic 'Geneticists – Biography'

The future famous geneticist Prof. Yuri Dubrova (1955–2023) was born in Kyiv (Ukraine), where he received excellent secondary and higher education and was awarded with a gold medal upon graduating from school. Eventually, he became one of the best graduates of the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at the Faculty of Biology of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. His interests included theoretical biology, evolutionary theory, genetics, biometrics, and bionics (for some time he studied the lateral lineage of cyprinid fishes). In his last years at the university, he focused on the study of spontaneous mutations. At the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics in Moscow, Y. Dubrova continued his post-graduate studies and successfully defended his PhD thesis. After the collapse of the USSR, he moved to the UK in search of better scientific and technical opportunities, where he became a professor at the University of Leicester. The scientist lived and worked in Leicester until the end of his life. He devoted himself fully to science, especially to radiation, medical and population genetics, and to teaching, and tried to participate in the study of highly complex medical and genetic issues related, in particular, to the consequences of man-made disasters—Chornobyl (Ukraine, Belarus), Semipalatinsk (Kazakhstan)—and other cases of large-scale radiation effects on life. Dr. Dubrova is the author and co-author of more than 150 scientific articles published in leading journals, including the American Journal of Human Genetics, International Journal of Radiation Biology, Radiation Research, Molecular Biology and Evolution, International Journal of Cancer, British Journal of Cancer, Science, and Nature. He co-operated with many of the world’s leading geneticists and gave lectures in Ukraine, Russia, the USA, Canada, Japan, etc. The article uses fragments of the author’s long correspondence with Y. Dubrova, which may be of interest to biographers of F. Dobrzhansky, M. Tymofeiev-Resovsky, O. Sozinov, O. Yablokov, O. Kistiakowsky, as well as to students, teachers, and historians of Kyiv National University, Kaniv Nature Reserve, and the University of Leicester.

Literature can offer a meaningful context for discussing and learning mathematics. Books allow students to view mathematics in a variety of contexts, which can provide a forum for both verbal and written mathematics communication. “Students who have opportunities, encouragement, and support for speaking, writing, reading, and listening in mathematics classes reap dual benefits: they communicate to learn mathematics, and they learn to communicate mathematically” (NCTM 2000, p. 60).

The article is devoted to the activities of an outstanding person - scientist, helminthologist, geneticist, Doctor of Biology Sciences, Professor I.M.Vinnitsky (1910-1951). Ilya Markovich was the head of several biological departments of medical institutes in the Soviet Union (Simferopol, Tomsk, Sverdlovsk, Samarkand). His life was extraordinary, bright and at the same time difficult. Despite the fact that the period of his labor activity at that time fell on the era of the organization and formation of many medical institutes, his scientific, pedagogical and organizational activities left important, necessary traces for fu- ture generations of doctors in our country. Nevertheless, the archives and departments, as it turned out, do not contain rich information even about the great and significant people of that period. Perhaps this is due to wartime, when only in Simferopol the Crimean Medical Institute experienced 2 evacuations and countless bombings. Ilya Markovich’s family members, son Vladimir Ilyich and grandson Danil Vladimirovich, helped the authors to restore the lost parts of the biography, but in essence they were told on the basis of the surviving part of the copies of documents, so that we know and remember, and could pass on to future generations about our teachers and inspirers. The article is part of a series of publications of the Department of Medical Biology, dedicated to the 90th anniver- sary of the Medical Academy named after S.I. Georgievsky and the 90th anniversary of the Department of Medical Biology, the anniversary of which fell on 2021.

The article follows the series of author's publications devoted to the biography of L. G. Ramensky (Golub, Nikolaichuk, 2012; Golub, 2013, 2014, 2017). It describes a short period of his life when he met an outstanding botanist, geneticist, and geographer N. I. Vavilov, whose 130th anniversary is celebrated in 2017. In 1917 Ramensky moved fr om Petrograd to the Voronezh region, where he lived until 1928. These years in Voronezh were among the most productive in his life. Ramensky worked in several organizations of the region wh ere he met and cooperated with such well-known scientists as B. A. Keller, B. M. Kozo-Po­lyansky, A. I. Maltsev and N. I. Vavilov. Ramensky and Vavilov met in Voronezh in September 1920 at the First All-Russian Congress on applied Botany. Аt the congress Vavilov repeated his talk on the law of homologous series, which he first presented in June of the same year in Saratov. Ramensky gave five talks which mainly concerned the theory of phytocenology. These presentations received a positive feedback from the congress participants. The author suggests that Vavilov thought of involving Ramensky in his research, which he directed at the Bureau of applied Botany in Petrograd. Vavilov and Ramensky agreed on cooperation. Ramensky was offerd to study the meadow-steppe vegetation in the Kamennaya Steppe. Ramensky had the pragmatic approach to this cooperation. He and his family were starving. For the work assigned to him by Vavilov, Ramensky received food rations and remuneration in money. In addition, Vavilov promised to provide Ramensky with an assistant for his work on the compilation of vegetative key to the plants. Observations made by Ramensky in the Kamennaya Steppe were used in his article “Basic regularities of vegetation cover and their study (on the basis of geobotanical researches in Voronezh province)” (Ramensky, 1924). This fundamental work has not lost its significance until now.

The article analyzes two unsuccessful attempts of Mikhail Mikhailovich Zavadovsky (1891–1957), prominent specialist in the field of physico-chemical biology, parasitology, endocrinology, and developmental biology, Academician of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1935), to become a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences that took place in 1938–39 and in 1946 and possible reasons for his failure. The historical literature devoted to Zavadovsky is scarce; the history of his election to the USSR Academy of Sciences has never been studied, and thus, studying it would be an important step towards creating thorough biography of the scientist. When writing this article, such basic methods of historical research as narrative and prosopographic ones have been used. To achieve the declared goal, identification and analysis of relevant archival sources has been carried out. The documents on Zavadovsky?s election discovered to date are preserved in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences; of them of the greatest interest are two scientist’s personal files from the collection of personal files of candidates for full and corresponding members of the USSR Academy of Sciences balloted in 1939, materials from Zavadovsky?s personal fond, and materials from the fonds of the Department of Mathematical and Natural Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Department of Biological Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and the Secretariat of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The article shows that in 1938 Zavadovsky was nominated a candidate for full membership in the USSR Academy of Sciences by a group of scientists representing various research and educational institutions, as well as by the Moscow State University. However, his candidacy did not pass the first filter in the election process, a special commission of the Department of Mathematical and Natural Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences, created to discuss candidates for full members of the Academy. Probably, this happened because he had to compete in the elections with T. D. Lysenko and his associates; in any case, there was criticism of Zavadovsky as Lysenko’d antagonist and it even reached public sphere. In 1946, Zavadovsky made a second attempt to be elected, already in status of the Stalin Prize laureate, which he received in the same year; this time he was nominated as a candidate for full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences by the Academic Council of the Faculty of Biology of the Saratov State University. However, he faced certain formal obstacles. The Department of Biological Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR had five full member vacancies: two in botany, two in microbiology and biochemistry, and one in evolutionary physiology; thus, Zavadovsky, nominated in zoology, was unable to take part in the election for formal reasons. L. S. Stern?s proposal to consider him as physiologist (which was true) could not be implemented, as unidentified government commission classified Zavadovsky as geneticist, and he was to be discussed in this group in the status of a candidate for corresponding member of the Academy. Due to objective reasons, he could not compete with specialists in the field of genetics and was not elected, although showed very decent voting results. Summing up, it can be stated that Zavadovsky failed in his election to the USSR Academy of Sciences not because he did not deserve the title, but for formal, personal, and political reasons.

The author has proved that doctor of agricultural sciences, professor, academician V. Burkat was a talented publicist, a promoter of national agricultural science achievements.The author has used general scientific, interdisciplinary and historical research methods. She has also used methods of archive and literature source analysis. The basis of the literature source base is scientific papers of doctor of agricultural sciences, professor, academician V. Burkat.The article shows that V. Burkat is a co-founder of the historical-biographical series, encyclopedic, reference and bibliographic publications, editor of the scientific-themed digests, author of fundamental scientific papers. One of the greatest achievements of the scientist is active participation in the intensive deployment of encyclopedic work in Ukraine. He was a member of the main editorial board of the "Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine" from 1997. During the life years he published eight volumes of this edition. In the last years Institute of Encyclopedic Research started preparing another encyclopedic edition – Universal Encyclopedia of Ukraine. V. Burkat prepared dictionary of agricultural section. He believed the leading field of research on the history of domestic agricultural science should become agricultural biographу studies. The first step in this direction was the establishment of historical and biographical series "Ukrainian Agrarian Scientists of the Twentieth Century" in 1997. He produced nine books in the series, which highlighted the life, scientific and public activities of 1270 Ukrainian agrarian scientists. V. Burkat took an active part in the preparation of publications on the activities of scientists in the field of animal husbandry to their anniversaries. These are conference theses, monographs on the life and work of F. Faltz-Fein, I. Ivanov, M. Ivanov, I. Smirnov, O. Yatsenko, F. Eisner, M. Kravchenko, O. Kvasnytsky and others. The scientist contributed to the establishment and development of national agricultural bibliography. Bibliographies of leading scientists in the field of animal breeding, corresponding members of NAAS F. Eisner and M. Efymenko, professors I. Smirnov and V. Konovalov, doctors I. Petrenko and B. Podoba were issued by his scientific edition.The author has justified that academician V. Burkat is one of the drafters of the branch thematic bibliography "The Beef Cattle: Past, Present and Future. 1950-2004". He proposed to establish new serial publication "Scientific Agricultural School". V. Burkat provided special attention to popularization of some research scientific and industrial institutions that considered as the main link towards building of national agricultural experimantal work on animal husbandry. In particular, he prepared a series of publications which summarized the main stages of NAAS and IABG activities.V. Burkat`s contribution to the popularization of Ukrainian scientists’ achievements on animal husbandry is particularly significant. He prepared the reference editions "Breeding Work" (1995), "Breeding Resources of Ukraine" (1998), "Selection Achievements in Animal Breeding" (2000). The documentaries "Brown Dairy Breed", "Red Breed", "Red-and-White Breed", "Black-and-White Breed" prepared by academician V. Burkat in 1989 profit presentation of breeding achievements of Ukrainian scientists in the field of animal husbandry.V. Burkat initiated the publication of scientific and practical bulletin "Selection", which provided systematic information on development of the selection process of the improvement of existing and creation of new highly productive breeds and types of farm animals.V. Burkat was a member of the editorial board of the journals «Animal Husbandry of Ukraine" (1978-2009), "Journal of Agricultural Sciences" (1986-1989), "Biology of Animals" (1999-2009), "Fisheries Science" (2007); scientific thematic collections of "Dairy and Beef Cattle" (1982-1987), "Journal of Cherkassy Institute of Agroindustrial Production" (2000-2009), "Bulletin of the Ukrainian Society of Geneticists and Breeders" (2003-2009), abstract journal "Agriculture of Ukraine "(1999-2009), interdepartmental thematic scientific digest "Animal Breeding and Genetics" and others.