blindpig
12-01-2007, 12:42 PM
http://bp1.blogger.com/_NbQYy76a608/Rhn6K4mbBYI/AAAAAAAAD9s/1GrH2OS33Kw/s320/vavilov2.jpg
Nikolai Vavilov was born on Nov. 25, 1887, probably in Moscow, into a wealthy merchant family. Having decided to specialize in agriculture and biology, he entered the Agricultural Academy at Petrovsko-Razumovskoe. In 1913 and 1914 he continued his education at the School of Agriculture, Cambridge University, studying under Sir Rowland Biffen, and at the John Innes Horticultural Institution, working with William Bateson, a pioneer geneticist. Vavilov first established his scientific reputation by publishing papers on the immunity of cereals to fungus diseases, explaining immunity in terms of Mendelian factors, systematics, and plant physiology.
snip
Vavilov spoke many languages and traveled extensively throughout the United States and Europe to meet with colleagues and study scientific innovations in agriculture. He is best known for The Centers of Origin of Cultivated Plants (1926), in which he established that the greatest genetic diversity of wild plant species would be found near the origins of modern cultivated species. Until 1935 he organized expeditions to remote corners of the world in order to collect, catalog, and preserve specimens of plant biodiversity. In the Soviet Union Vavilov was a powerful advocate and organizer of scientific institutions, and he tirelessly promoted research in genetics and plant breeding as a means of improving Soviet agriculture. Vavilov was director of the Institute of Applied Botany (1924 - 1929), a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, director of the All-Union Institute of Plant Breeding (1930 - 1940) and the Institute of Genetics (1933 - 1940), president and vice-president of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1929 - 1938), and president of the All-Union Geographical Society (1931 - 1940).
snip
In 1940 he was jailed as a defender of the "bourgeois pseudoscience" (genetics) in a struggle with Lysenkoism, and died of malnutrition in a prison in 1943. The majority of his genetic samples were seized by a German collecting command set up in 1943, and the samples were transferred to the SS Institute for Plant Genetics, which had been established at the Lannach Castle near Graz, Austria.[3] However, the command was only able to collect the samples stored in agricultural research stations located within the territories occupied by the German armies, mainly in Ukraine and Crimea. The main gene bank in Leningrad was thus not affected. The leader of the German command was Heinz Brücher, an SS officer who was also a plant genetics expert.
Today, the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry in St.Petersburg still maintains one of the world's largest collections of plant genetic material ([1]). The Institute originated as the Bureau of Applied Botany in 1894, but was reorganized in 1924 into the All-Union Research Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops, and in 1930 into the Research Institute of Plant Industry. Nikolai I. Vavilov was the head of the institute from 1921 to 1940. In 1968 the Institute was renamed after Vavilov in time for its 75 anniversary.
http://www.answers.com/topic/nikolai-vavilov
http://www.cgiar.org/enews/june2007/images_06_07/story6.gif
The N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Plant Industry is the world's first seed bank and one of the world's largest collections of plant genetic material. The Institute originated as the Bureau of Applied Botany in 1894. Nikolai I. Vavilov, a Russian biologist, botanist and geneticist, was nominated for the directorship of the Bureau by its founder, Robert E. Regel, in 1917. The Bureau was reorganized in 1924 into the All-Union Research Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops. In 1930 it became the Research Institute of Plant Industry. In 1968 the Institute was renamed after Vavilov in time for its 75 anniversary.
Today the collection numbers 380,000 gene types representing 2,500 plant species. Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Vavilov Institute network consisted of 19 experimental stations, six of them located outside Russia. The stations outside Russia held 25 percent of the entire collection.
Under Stalin, the Institute suffered repression since genetics was seen as a science that supports "inborn class differences." One of Stalin's victims was Vavilov himself. After being denounced by a former student, Stalin's protege Trofim Lysenko, Vavilov was arrested in August 1940 as he set out on a plant-collecting expedition in the Carpathian Mountains.
One year later, Hitler's army blockaded Leningrad. Under German fire, scientists gathered unripened potato tubers from the institute's experimental fields outside Leningrad. They burned everything they could find to keep the collection from freezing in the unheated, dark building. While guarding the collection, some scientists starved to death rather than eat the packets of rice, corn and other seeds in their desks.
http://www.ecobooks.com/authors/vavilov.htm
Old Jared Diamond couldn't have written his "Guns, Germs and Steel" without this dude.
This post was inspired by "The Sixth Extinction", by Terry Glavin. A real good read, taking the crisis of biodiversity and human cultural diversity as one piece.
Nikolai Vavilov was born on Nov. 25, 1887, probably in Moscow, into a wealthy merchant family. Having decided to specialize in agriculture and biology, he entered the Agricultural Academy at Petrovsko-Razumovskoe. In 1913 and 1914 he continued his education at the School of Agriculture, Cambridge University, studying under Sir Rowland Biffen, and at the John Innes Horticultural Institution, working with William Bateson, a pioneer geneticist. Vavilov first established his scientific reputation by publishing papers on the immunity of cereals to fungus diseases, explaining immunity in terms of Mendelian factors, systematics, and plant physiology.
snip
Vavilov spoke many languages and traveled extensively throughout the United States and Europe to meet with colleagues and study scientific innovations in agriculture. He is best known for The Centers of Origin of Cultivated Plants (1926), in which he established that the greatest genetic diversity of wild plant species would be found near the origins of modern cultivated species. Until 1935 he organized expeditions to remote corners of the world in order to collect, catalog, and preserve specimens of plant biodiversity. In the Soviet Union Vavilov was a powerful advocate and organizer of scientific institutions, and he tirelessly promoted research in genetics and plant breeding as a means of improving Soviet agriculture. Vavilov was director of the Institute of Applied Botany (1924 - 1929), a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, director of the All-Union Institute of Plant Breeding (1930 - 1940) and the Institute of Genetics (1933 - 1940), president and vice-president of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1929 - 1938), and president of the All-Union Geographical Society (1931 - 1940).
snip
In 1940 he was jailed as a defender of the "bourgeois pseudoscience" (genetics) in a struggle with Lysenkoism, and died of malnutrition in a prison in 1943. The majority of his genetic samples were seized by a German collecting command set up in 1943, and the samples were transferred to the SS Institute for Plant Genetics, which had been established at the Lannach Castle near Graz, Austria.[3] However, the command was only able to collect the samples stored in agricultural research stations located within the territories occupied by the German armies, mainly in Ukraine and Crimea. The main gene bank in Leningrad was thus not affected. The leader of the German command was Heinz Brücher, an SS officer who was also a plant genetics expert.
Today, the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry in St.Petersburg still maintains one of the world's largest collections of plant genetic material ([1]). The Institute originated as the Bureau of Applied Botany in 1894, but was reorganized in 1924 into the All-Union Research Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops, and in 1930 into the Research Institute of Plant Industry. Nikolai I. Vavilov was the head of the institute from 1921 to 1940. In 1968 the Institute was renamed after Vavilov in time for its 75 anniversary.
http://www.answers.com/topic/nikolai-vavilov
http://www.cgiar.org/enews/june2007/images_06_07/story6.gif
The N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Plant Industry is the world's first seed bank and one of the world's largest collections of plant genetic material. The Institute originated as the Bureau of Applied Botany in 1894. Nikolai I. Vavilov, a Russian biologist, botanist and geneticist, was nominated for the directorship of the Bureau by its founder, Robert E. Regel, in 1917. The Bureau was reorganized in 1924 into the All-Union Research Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops. In 1930 it became the Research Institute of Plant Industry. In 1968 the Institute was renamed after Vavilov in time for its 75 anniversary.
Today the collection numbers 380,000 gene types representing 2,500 plant species. Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Vavilov Institute network consisted of 19 experimental stations, six of them located outside Russia. The stations outside Russia held 25 percent of the entire collection.
Under Stalin, the Institute suffered repression since genetics was seen as a science that supports "inborn class differences." One of Stalin's victims was Vavilov himself. After being denounced by a former student, Stalin's protege Trofim Lysenko, Vavilov was arrested in August 1940 as he set out on a plant-collecting expedition in the Carpathian Mountains.
One year later, Hitler's army blockaded Leningrad. Under German fire, scientists gathered unripened potato tubers from the institute's experimental fields outside Leningrad. They burned everything they could find to keep the collection from freezing in the unheated, dark building. While guarding the collection, some scientists starved to death rather than eat the packets of rice, corn and other seeds in their desks.
http://www.ecobooks.com/authors/vavilov.htm
Old Jared Diamond couldn't have written his "Guns, Germs and Steel" without this dude.
This post was inspired by "The Sixth Extinction", by Terry Glavin. A real good read, taking the crisis of biodiversity and human cultural diversity as one piece.