Presentation on the topic "Nikolai Konstantinovich Koltsov". Koltsov Nikolay - biography, facts from life, photographs, background information Koltsov n. 1872 1940

KOLTSOV, NIKOLAY KONSTANTINOVICH(1872–1940), Russian biologist, author of the idea of matrix synthesis of “hereditary molecules.” Born on July 15 (8), 1872 in Moscow in the family of an accountant for a large fur company. At the age of eight he entered the Moscow gymnasium, from which he graduated with a gold medal. In his youth, he collected plants, collected seeds and insects, walked throughout the Moscow province, and later throughout the Crimea. In 1890 he entered the natural sciences department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University, where he specialized in comparative anatomy and comparative embryology. Koltsov’s leader during this period was the head of the school of Russian zoologists M.A. Menzbir. In 1894 he took part in the IX Congress of Russian Naturalists and Doctors, where he made a report The importance of cartilaginous centers in the development of the vertebrate pelvis and then executed basic research Hind limb girdle and hind limbs of vertebrates, for which he was awarded a gold medal.

After graduating from the university (1894), Koltsov was left there to prepare for a professorship, and after three years of studies and successfully passing six master's exams, he was sent abroad for two years. He worked in laboratories in Germany and at marine biological stations in Italy. The collected material served as the basis for a master's thesis, which Koltsov defended in 1901.

Even during his studies, Koltsov's interests began to turn from comparative anatomy to cytology. Having received the right to a privatdocent course after returning from a business trip abroad, he begins to lecture precisely on this subject. In 1902, Koltsov was again sent abroad, where for two years he worked in the largest biological laboratories and at marine stations. These years coincided with a period when in biology there was a decline in interest in purely descriptive morphological sciences and new trends began to emerge - experimental cytology, biological chemistry, developmental mechanics, genetics, which opened up completely new approaches to understanding the organic world. Koltsov’s communication with the largest cytologists in Europe (W. Fleming, O. Büchli), as well as with R. Goldschmidt and M. Hartmann, finally confirmed his decision to “move from the study of morphology on dead preparations to the study of life processes on living objects.” While on his second trip abroad, he performed the first part of his classical Research on cell shape – A study on the sperm of decapods in connection with general considerations regarding cell organization(1905), intended for a doctoral dissertation. This work together with the second part Research on cell shape, published in 1908, was established in science as the “Koltsov principle” of shape-determining cellular skeletons (cytoskeletons).

Returning to Russia in 1903, Koltsov, without stopping scientific research, began intensive pedagogical and scientific-organizational work. The course of cytology, which began back in 1899, grew into a hitherto unknown course of general biology. The second course taught by Koltsov, “Systematic Zoology,” was extremely popular among students. The “Big Zoological Workshop” created by Koltsov, where students were accepted by competition, formed a single whole with the lectures.

Koltsov was an active member of the circle headed by the Bolshevik P.K. Sternberg. During the days of the 1905 revolution, the center of the circle’s work was moved from the observatory where Sternberg worked to Koltsov’s office. Collective protests and petitions were drawn up here, appeals from the student committee were printed on an underground mimeograph, and leaflets were stored. Koltsov’s state of mind during this period is best characterized by his book In memory of the fallen. Victims from among Moscow students in October and December days(1906). Published on the opening day of the first Duma, the book was confiscated on the same day, but more than half of the circulation had already been sold out. Soon after the suppression of the revolution, Koltsov’s doctoral dissertation was supposed to be defended, but he refused to defend it “on days like these, when behind closed doors" In 1909 for participation in political activity Koltsov was suspended from classes, and in 1911, together with other leading teachers of Moscow University, resigned and until 1918 he taught at the Higher Women's Courses and at the Moscow People's University Shanyavsky. In the latter, he created an excellent laboratory and trained a galaxy of famous biologists (M.M. Zavadovsky, A.S. Serebrovsky, S.N. Skadovsky, G.I. Roskin, etc.).

From the study of the supporting skeletal elements of the cell, Koltsov moves on to the study of contractile structures. The third part of it appears Research on cell shape – Studies on the contractility of the stalk of Zoothamnium alternans(1911), and then works on the influence of cations (1912) and hydrogen ions (1915) on physiological processes in the cell. These studies were important for establishing the so-called physiological ion series, and also attracted the attention of Russian biologists to the most important issue active role of the environment and marked the beginning of a whole period in the development of physical and chemical biology in Russia. In 1916, for the contribution to science made by Koltsov by this time, he was elected a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In 1917, with funds from the Moscow Society of Scientific Institutes, the Institute of Experimental Biology was created for Koltsov, which for a long time remained the only non-teaching biological research institution in the country. Here Koltsov had the opportunity to “combine a number of the latest trends in modern experimental biology in order to study certain problems from different points of view and, if possible, using different methods.” We talked about developmental physiology, genetics, biochemistry and cytology. The scientific team of the Institute initially consisted of Koltsov’s students, and then was replenished with prominent biologists from other scientific schools. IN different time A.S. Serebrovsky, N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky, S.S. Chetverikov, G.V. Epstein, N.P. Dubinin, G.V. Lopashov, I.A. Rapoport, P.F. worked here. Rokitsky, B.N. Sidorov, V.P. Efroimson and others. In the post-revolutionary years, many employees worked for free or shared one rate between two. In 1920, with the active participation of Koltsov, the Russian Eugenics Society arose, at the same time a eugenics department was organized at the Institute of Experimental Biology, which launched research on human medical genetics (the first work on the study of blood groups, the content of catalase in it, etc.), as well as on such issues of anthropogenetics as the inheritance of hair and eye color, variability and heredity of complex traits in identical twins, etc. The department had its first medical genetic consultation. The Institute began the first theoretical studies in the USSR on the genetics of Drosophila.

In 1927, at the 3rd Congress of Zoologists, Anatomists and Histologists, Koltsov made a report Physico-chemical basis of morphology, in which he expanded the general biological principles “Omne vinum ex ovo” and “Omnis cellula ex cellula”, proclaiming the paradoxical principle at that time “Omnis molecule ex molecule” - “Every molecule from a molecule.” In this case, not just any molecules were meant - we were talking about those “hereditary molecules”, on the reproduction of which, according to the idea first expressed by Koltsov, the morphophysiological continuity of the organization of living beings rests. Koltsov imagined these “hereditary molecules” in the form of giant protein macromolecules that make up the axial genetically active structure of the chromosomes, or, in Koltsov’s terminology, the genoneme. Genetic information was represented as encoded not by the alternation of DNA nucleotides, but by a sequence of amino acids in a highly polymeric protein chain. Koltsov associated the transcription process with the replication of the protein part of the nucleoprotein basis of chromosomes. He was misled by the visual disappearance of thymonucleic acid (i.e. DNA) in late oogenesis and in giant chromosomes.

In December 1936, a special session of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences was convened to combat “bourgeois genetics.” N.I. Vavilov, A.S. Serebrovsky, G.J. Möller, N.K. Koltsov, M.M. Zavadovsky, G.D. Karpechenko, G.A. Levitsky, N.P. spoke in defense of genetics. Dubinin. Against “bourgeois genetics” - T.D. Lysenko, N.V. Tsitsin, I.I. Present. Koltsov, not sharing Vavilov’s optimism that “the building of genetics remained unshaken,” addressed a letter to the President of VASKhNIL A.I. Muralov, where he wrote about the responsibility of all scientists for the state of science in the country. The answer was made on March 26, 1937 at the general meeting of the VASKhNIL activists, dedicated to the results of the plenum of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Muralov attacked Koltsov’s “politically harmful” theories on genetics and eugenics. Work on eugenics served as the main pretext for the persecution of Koltsov. On March 4, 1939, the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences considered the issue “On strengthening the fight against existing pseudoscientific perversions” and created a commission to familiarize itself with the work of the Koltsov Institute. Koltsov was demanded that in a “generally accepted form” he “give... an analysis of his false teachings in... a scientific journal or, better yet, in all journals... having fulfilled his elementary duty to the party.” But Koltsov did not do this, and he was fired from his post as director.

The scientist’s archive contains many unfinished works. First of all, this is part four Research on cell shape, on which Koltsov worked intermittently for 20 years and which is devoted to experimental studies of the physicochemical foundations of morpho-physiological phenomena that are observed in the cells of effector organs. The keynote speech “Chemistry and Morphology”, dedicated to a new interpretation of cellular structures in their statics and dynamics, remained unfinished.

In 1976, the Institute of Developmental Biology of the USSR Academy of Sciences was named after Koltsov.

Nikolai Konstantinovich Koltsov (July 3 (15), 1872, Moscow - December 2, 1940, Leningrad) - an outstanding Russian biologist, author of the idea of matrix synthesis.

Koltsov was a “merchant’s son”, born in Moscow into the family of an accountant for a large fur company. He brilliantly graduated from the Moscow Gymnasium. In 1890 he entered the natural sciences department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University, where he specialized in the field of comparative anatomy and comparative embryology. Koltsov’s scientific supervisor during this period was the head of the school of Russian zoologists M.A. Menzbier.

In 1895, Menzbier recommended that Koltsov leave the university “to prepare for a professorship.” Since 1899, Koltsov has been a private assistant professor at Moscow University. After three years of studies and successfully passing six master's exams, Koltsov was sent abroad for two years. He worked in laboratories in Germany and at marine biological stations in Italy. The collected material served as the basis for a master's thesis, which Koltsov defended in 1901. Koltsov’s works on the biophysics of the cell and, especially, on the factors that determine the shape of the cell, have become classic and are included in textbooks.

Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1925; St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences - since 1916, Russian Academy Sciences - since 1917), academician of the VASKhNIL (1935).

In 1920, Koltsov was considered as one of the defendants in the Tactical Center case.

And he was sentenced by the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal, among nineteen accused, to death, but the execution was replaced, according to some sources, with a suspended prison sentence of five years, according to others - with concentration camp to end civil war.

He was buried at the Vvedenskoye Cemetery in Moscow.

Scientific activity

He showed, mainly on the sperm of decapod crustaceans, the formative significance of cellular “skeletons” (Koltsov’s principle), the effect of ionic series on the reactions of contractile and pigment cells, and physicochemical effects on the activation of unfertilized eggs for development. He was the first to develop the hypothesis of the molecular structure and matrix reproduction of chromosomes (“hereditary molecules”), which anticipated the most important fundamental principles of modern molecular biology and genetics (1928).

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“The fate of Russia depends, first of all, on whether the active type (of people) will be able to survive and multiply in it, or whether the inert type will prevail, and the precious genes of activity will die.”

N.K. Koltsov

On Easter 1877, the youngest, Nikolenka, was given a red ball on a string. You could use it to pull him from the ceiling. Koltsov recalled: “And I wanted the ball to rise higher. I climbed onto the window, opened the window and stuck the ball out. That's why he flew up! But the string slipped out of my hands, and the ball completely flew away. The nanny and the older children rushed to catch him and, of course, without success.”

A balloon is a symbol of a child's dream. He will appear more than once in the art of the twentieth century. In the film by S.A. Luchishkin’s “The Ball Flew Away” (1926), in the film “The Red Balloon” by Albert Lamoris (1956)… Okudzhava also sang about this: “The girl is crying - the ball has flown away...” But Kolya Koltsov did not cry. He liked that the ball rose higher and higher, to where pigeons flashed like bright chalk spots above the Kremlin. Between this spring and another, gloomy day, lay the life of the great Russian biologist.

In 1912, he wrote to his future wife from Paris about flying in an airplane: “The feeling of flying is completely new, unexpected. There was no fear at all. But I wanted to move, to actively take part in the flight.” In the 1930s, Soviet aeronautics set altitude records. Of course, Koltsov's attention will be attracted by the opportunity to study the mutagenic effect of cosmic radiation. On the stratospheric balloon “1-bis USSR” its fruit flies will rise to a height of 20,000 m. The sky fascinated him...

Biology is destiny

Nikolai Konstantinovich Koltsov was born into a Moscow family with modest income and strong foundations. He lost his father early. He, as in a folk song, “froze in the steppe.” What a Russian fate!

At the gymnasium, of course, he received a gold medal. In 1890 he entered Moscow University, the excellent classical zoological school of Professor M.A. Menzbir. And again he received a gold medal for his student work “The belt of the hind limbs and the hind limbs of vertebrates.” But the thinking student quickly ceased to be satisfied with morphology, the external, descriptive approach to biology. Koltsov began to gravitate towards histology and embryology.

And at this time, at the turn of the century, Russian science, our biologists will make a number of major, revolutionary discoveries. Domestic science successfully laid the foundations for the development of Russia for decades to come. It was a bid for a place among the world's first powers. Leading the way were Nobel laureates biologists Ivan Pavlov and Ilya Mechnikov. Russian “Americanists” should remember that overseas biologists caught up with us only in 1933. Their first laureate will be Thomas Morgan.

Domestic philanthropists made their significant contribution to education and science. Using the scholarship received, Nikolai Koltsov was sent in 1897 to continue his education in European laboratories. Menzbier was prescient: “I hope you will bring more than one dissertation with you!”

The Naples Marine Zoological Station will play a special role in the scientist’s life. It was originally founded in Sicily in 1868–1869 by the Russian explorer Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay and his half-Russian friend Anton Dorn. Dorn later moved it to Naples. There Koltsov will successfully complete his work on the development of the lamprey head and thereby “complete the comparative anatomical period” of his research.

In Naples he met Hans Driesch, who, together with Wilhelm Roux, became the founder of a new discipline - the mechanics (biology) of development. Another neighbor at the boarding house was G. Herbst. He was busy with the influence of individual seawater ions on the development of eggs sea urchin. The Russian scientist took here the first hints for future plans.

It was an interesting time when new, experimental biology was born.

Returning to Moscow in 1899, Koltsov defended his master's thesis. He teaches a course in cytology as a private assistant professor.

1902 The scientist meets in Europe and begins to study the influence of ions on the shape of free animal cells. He does not immediately find his object of study. They became the sperm of sea crayfish (lobsters), which were very different in shape. Remembering the lectures of Professor A.G. Stoletova, Koltsov creates a model of changing the shape of animal cells. The more powerful and durable the elastic formations inside the cell are, the more they deviate from the shape of the ball. They resist internal osmotic pressure, balanced by the osmotic pressure of the external environment.

This is how the “Koltsov principle of cell organization” was born, and with it came international recognition. So – not in the second half, but at the dawn of the twentieth century – the discovery of the cytoskeleton took place. Koltsov will bring physical and chemical biology to Russia along with his doctoral dissertation.

Revolution, genetics, evolution

Broad plans required comrades. A favorite of students, Koltsov began to grow his school at Moscow University, and continued at Guerrier’s higher women’s courses and at the People’s University of General Shanyavsky.

In his political views, the scientist was close to the left. In the January days of 1906, he refused to defend his doctoral dissertation behind closed doors - the students were on strike. Later his brochure “In Memory of the Fallen” was published. Victims from among Moscow students in October and December days.” He is being squeezed out of Moscow University. He finally left it in 1911, along with a large group of professors and teachers. This was a protest against the offensive of the Minister of Education L.A. Casso on university autonomy.

At Shanyavsky University, Koltsov creates the world's first laboratory of experimental biology. In 1916, he publicly set the task of changing the heredity of organisms, affecting them with radiation and active chemical compounds. In the same year, at the suggestion of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, the “leftist” and only a master (!) Koltsov was elected to the Imperial Academy. He refuses to be elected a full academician: this required moving to the capital, and in Moscow Koltsov has already “overgrown” with students. In 1917, Moscow entrepreneurs financed the creation of the Koltsovo Institute of Experimental Biology.

Revolution, famine, and Civil War confused all the cards. But scientists and enlightened Bolsheviks (N.A. Semashko) will be able to “drag” several scientific institutions through the revolution. Despite his arrest in 1920 (and subsequent release by order of Lenin), Koltsov did not stop working.

As will become clear, back in 1915, the idea of a biological matrix began to mature in him (in the final version - 1927). Simultaneously with the teacher’s interest in genetics, the first professional geneticist in Russia, A.S., appeared. Serebrovsky. Koltsov is returned to Moscow University. In 1925, his institute received a beautiful mansion on Vorontsovo Polye (today it houses the Indian Embassy) and soon became internationally famous. The institute’s “combat mission” is genetics and evolution.

Biological matrix

Koltsov and his school will largely determine the face of twentieth-century biology. First of all, this is the matrix hypothesis, the core of molecular biology. According to Koltsov, biological characteristics are encoded in the chemical structure of the hereditary molecule (genoneme). "Every molecule is a molecule." He assumed the protein nature of the matrix, but at the same time postulated a number of its properties that were fully applicable to nucleic acids. Koltsov saw genes as separate sections of the genoneme. He wrote about assembling a new genoneme on an existing matrix.

Mutations appear due to changes in the chemical structure of the macromolecule. The simplest of these changes is methylation: “Genes should be recognized as capable of variability, in particular mutations, since in any organic compound a hydrogen atom can be abruptly replaced by a CH3 group.” The scientist predicted this effect back in 1915!

Thus, Koltsov’s ideas about genome methylation are already 100 years old! This is a now recognized mechanism of epigenetic (changes in the functioning, expression of genes that do not affect the DNA sequence) changes. “It is known for certain that DNA methylation... controls all genetic processes” (B.F. Vanyushin, 2005). From surviving in conditions Leningrad blockade before the notorious vernalization. Using this phenomenon, which supposedly gives an increase in yields, Trofim Lysenko made a name for himself.

The canonical “history” of molecular biology is known. According to it, the founders of this science were physicists (Erwin Schrödinger and others). Simon Shnol at one time showed how it really was.

In 1935, Koltsov’s student Timofeev-Resovsky, with his younger German colleagues K. Zimmer and M. Delbrück, published the work “The Green Notebook”, or TZD. In it, starting from Koltsov’s ideas about hereditary molecules, researchers tried to determine the size of an individual gene. They relied on Drosophila genetics and used radiobiological target theory.

In 1943, the “Green Notebook” was read by the classic physicist Erwin Schrödinger. He was delighted. He began to give lectures on this topic and wrote a book, in Russian translation it is called “What is life from the point of view of physics?” He popularly presented the contents of the work, supplementing it with his own, not always correct, considerations. As they once joked, physicists often judge biology the way a virgin judges love. In his book, entire passages from Koltsov’s ideas can be easily traced. Schrödinger did not name its authorship.

Parisian molecular biologist Michel Morange also disagrees with the canonical history of this science. He began by emphasizing in his version the role of the French Nobel laureates, displacing the Anglo-Saxons in its history. Digging deeper, Morange (2011) discovered two large works by Koltsov on French– 1935 and 1939. The French researcher confirms Koltsov’s authorship in creating the matrix hypothesis. Moreover, he claims that Koltsov also coined the concept of “epigenetics” (1935). It was he, and not K. Waddington, who took credit for this discovery (1942).

Just as the “leftist” Koltsov was forced out of Moscow University under “bloody tsarism,” so the “rightist” Koltsov, who was then a firm opponent of Lysenkoism, was deprived of his chair and directorship at the institute he created. During the years of Lysenko's dominance (1941–1965), Koltsov's name was banned. And this was the time of the formation of a new, molecular biology.

When Koltsov was “allowed”, many of the achievements of the scientist and his school had already been “adapted” in the West. But in their homeland they were overgrown with the grass of oblivion and therefore were seen as Western miracle discoveries.

Improving the human breed

Even before the revolution, Nikolai Konstantinovich Koltsov and Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky had a common goal - “the organization of Russian science.” Stingy with praise, Vernadsky saw in Koltsov “a major scientist and a conscientious citizen... a brilliant lecturer, teacher and organizer.” Koltsov’s school confirmed many of the teacher’s guesses and continued his directions.

N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky, V.V. Sakharov and I.A. Rapoport are the creators of radiation and chemical mutagenesis. The first and third were nominated for Nobel Prize. They did not become laureates only for political reasons. Even before the war, Koltsov was successfully engaged in genetic engineering (N.P. Dubinin). Many thousands of clones of organisms were bred (B.L. Astaurov). B.V. Kedrovsky showed the role of nucleic acids in a living cell. Nikolai Konstantinovich’s collaborators and students (S.S. Chetverikov and others) were pioneers in the synthetic theory of evolution.

A tub of lies and slop fell on Koltsov because of eugenics. He, together with the wonderful domestic geneticist Yu.A. Filipchenko became its founder in Soviet Russia. Koltsov believed that biology stands above social and political trends. He looked at them as a scientist and a conscientious citizen, concerned about “saving the people” (M.V. Lomonosov).

Koltsov did not separate eugenics from human genetics. But there was very little anthropogenetic data, and eugenics for him was partly a social dream in the spirit of early Gorky, a dream of a beautiful Man. And on the other hand, “an interesting problem in an “interesting” historical era, when ... a huge mass of people begins to starve, kill each other and shoot,” Timofeev-Resovsky noted sarcastically.

Koltsov saw the duality of the revolution. She is an impetus for development and an opportunity for many people to swim to the surface. At the same time, according to Koltsov, “the race is becoming poorer in active elements.” On both sides, the most active, decisive, and convinced are dying. The scientist used the fiction of Herbert Wells to explain. To conquer the Earth, the Martians, relying on genetics, had to exterminate “all individuals with an innate factor of independence.” Those who remained would submit to the Martians.

The hints made in the 1920s were clear. For us, this process did not stop further. In 1926–1939, Russian losses from repression were higher than the national average, and the indicators natural increase- below. A remarkable successor to this direction of teacher research was Vladimir Pavlovich Efroimson.

On December 2, 1940, Nikolai Konstantinovich Koltsov died after being poisoned by a portion of salmon in the restaurant of the Evropeiskaya Hotel in Leningrad. This happened shortly after the arrest of Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov. Koltsov was brought in to testify. The investigators did not hear anything useful for themselves regarding the “Vavilov case”. One born to fly will not crawl. The very existence of academicians Vavilov and Koltsov was a powerful barrier in the way of charlatans from biology. And the fate of both was decided.

The cause of Koltsov's death was called a sudden heart attack. Documents from the 2nd Leningrad Ambulance Station tell a different story (Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences F 450, Inventory 2, Item 28). At 5 p.m. on November 27, 1940, he ate salmon in a restaurant. Weakness and signs of poisoning began to develop. Known remedies did not help. Continuous vomiting began, and pain in the chest increased. The patient was hospitalized. At times he lost consciousness. The luminaries of medicine were powerless. At 10 a.m. on December 2, he was gone. In the evening, his wife and comrade-in-arms Maria Polievktovna committed suicide. IN last years Constantly harassing her husband, she wore cyanide in her ring. Richard Goldschmidt will write: “It is simply a miracle that in the era of purges and executions he died a natural death.” The great biologist's friend was wrong. No miracle happened. Koltsov was not arrested, but executed by the leader.

Russia had a great history besides the military one. Koltsov was far ahead of his time; in terms of his creative power he was akin to the heroes of the Renaissance. Even major Ring scientists failed to fully evaluate his ideas - the time had not come. We still do not have a monument or even a memorial plaque to the scientist.

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But here are their most terrible actions: at the height of the civil war, they... wrote works, compiled notes, projects. Yes, "experts in state law, financial sciences, economic relations, judicial affairs and public education", they wrote works! (And, as you might guess, without relying in the least on the previous works of Lenin, Trotsky and Bukharin...) Prof. S. A. Kotlyarevsky - on the federal structure of Russia, In I. Stempkovsky - on the agrarian question (and, probably, without collectivization...), V. S. Muralevich - on public education in the future Russia, N. N. Vinogradarsky - on economics. And the (great) biologist N. K Koltsov (who had seen nothing from his homeland except persecution and execution) allowed these bourgeois whales to gather for conversations at his institute (N.D. Kondratyev also ended up here, who in 1931 would finally be condemned under the TKP.)

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And he was sentenced by the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal, among 19 accused, to death, but the execution was commuted, according to one source, to a suspended sentence imprisonment for 5 years, according to others, a concentration camp until the end of the civil war.

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Scientific activity

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Achievements

One of the founders of genetics in Russia.
Founder of the Institute of Experimental Biology in Moscow (summer 1917).
Organizer and head of the Russian Eugenics Society (the first meeting was held on November 19-20, 1920 at the IEB).

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(3/15.07.1872, Moscow - 2.12.1940, Leningrad)

Founder of Russian experimental biology. He was the first to develop a hypothesis of the molecular structure and matrix reproduction of chromosomes, which anticipated the fundamental principles of modern molecular biology and genetics.

In 1890 he entered Moscow University, from which he graduated in 1894 with a 1st degree diploma and a gold medal for the essay “The Belt of the Hind Limbs of Vertebrates.” At the university, Koltsov specialized under Professor M.A. Menzbir. Strong influence on scientific development and Koltsov’s interests were provided by the early deceased private associate professor, later professor of embryology and histology V.N. Lvov. As Koltsov himself wrote, it was Lvov who gave him, then still a second-year student, the work of A. Weisman “On the Rudimentary Path” to read. From Professor N.A. Ivantsov, who taught evolutionary studies and cytology, Koltsov received an interest in cytology. Although Koltsov's interests at the university were focused on issues of comparative anatomy, he read and studied the books of Lamarck and Darwin, Weismann and Gegenbaur, Schopenhauer and Kant, Buckle and Spinoza. While still a student, he completed the work “Development of the Pelvis in a Frog” and in 1894 reported on it at a sectional meeting All-Russian Congress naturalists and doctors. the summary of this report became Koltsov's first published work. In his third year, M.A. Menzbir suggested that he write an essay for the gold medal, “The Belt of the Hind Limbs and the Hind Limbs of Vertebrates.” Koltsov completed this task: he read about 50 literary sources on different languages(even in his high school years he studied English, German, French, and later Italian), and wrote by hand in large calligraphic handwriting an encyclopedia-sized book with a volume of about 700 pages, with a large number of artistic drawings made with a pen. The original of this unpublished work is stored in the library of the Institute of Developmental Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. While studying at the university, he traveled a lot to various places in Russia, from the outskirts of Moscow to the Crimea and the Caucasus.

After graduating from the university in 1894, he was left to prepare for the professorship. After passing his master's exams in 1896, Koltsov went abroad (1897-1898) to work in W. Flemming's laboratory in Kiel and at biological stations in Naples, Roscov and Villafranca. Communication with scientists different countries played big role in the future development of Koltsov as a researcher, in his departure from the purely comparative anatomical interests that prevailed in his student years, and ultimately led him to the formulation and study of fundamental general biological problems.

In 1900, he became a private assistant professor at Moscow University and in October 1901, having defended his master's thesis "Development of the head of the lamprey", he was approved as a master of zoology. After returning from a new two-year business trip (1902-1903), Koltsov began his duties as a private assistant professor at the university in the department of comparative anatomy, conducting classes with students in histology and microscopic zoology. During this period he began a series of studies in new area- cytology. In 1936, a collection of experimental studies, “Organization of the Cell,” was published, summarizing this work.

In the revolutionary days of 1905, N.K. Koltsov joined the circle of “eleven hot heads,” led by astronomer P.K. Sternberg. The suppression of revolutionary events directly affected the official position of N.K. Koltsov. A conflict began with M.A. Menzbir. N.K. Koltsov could not defend doctoral dissertation, dedicated to the structure of sperm cells of decapods and the role of formations that determine the shape of cells. “I refused to defend my dissertation on such days behind closed doors: the students were on strike, and I decided that I did not need a doctorate. Later, with my speeches during the revolutionary months, I completely upset my relationship with the official professorship, and the thought of defending my dissertation no longer came in my head." At the beginning of the 1906/07 school year. Mr. Menzbier suggested that Koltsov vacate the office he occupied, removed him from managing the library, and in the spring of 1907 he also took away the work room. Koltsov converted his personal apartment into a laboratory. In the 1909/10 school year. Mr. Menzbier suspended Koltsov from conducting practical classes at the Institute of Comparative Zoology. Koltsov was left with only lecturing on the course of invertebrate zoology, which he read in 1904. In 1903, he began teaching as a professor at the Higher Women's Courses until 1918, when they were transformed into the Second Moscow University and continued teaching as a professor at the Second Moscow University until 1924. At the same time (1903-1919) Koltsov taught classes at the City People's University named after. A.L. Shanyavsky.

While teaching at the Higher Women's Courses, Koltsov continued to be interested in university affairs. He published a brochure “On the University Question” (in 1909 and 1910), in which he criticized the order prevailing in universities. At the beginning of 1911 new minister public education, Casso deprived the university of the last remnants of autonomy. In protest, a large group of professors and teachers (Timiryazev, Chaplygin, Lebedev, Vernadsky, etc.) resigned, among them was Koltsov.

Beginning his work during the heyday of descriptive biology and the first steps of experimental biology, Koltsov had a keen sense of the trends in the development of biology and early realized the importance of the experimental method. He preached the need for an experimental approach in all areas of biology and predicted its use even in evolutionary teaching (without opposing experimental methods to descriptive ones). This was not a simple biological experiment, but the use of methods of physics and chemistry. Koltsov more than once emphasized the enormous importance for biology of the discovery of new forms of radiant energy, in particular X-rays and cosmic rays, and wrote about the use of radioactive substances. To study the organism as a whole, it is necessary to use all modern knowledge in the field of physical and colloidal chemistry; it is necessary to study monomolecular layers inside the cell and their role in various transformations of substances. “Biologists are waiting for these methods (X-ray diffraction analysis) to be improved so much that it will be possible to use them to study the crystal structure of intracellular skeletal, solid structures of protein and other nature.” This idea was prophetic and was actually realized in the discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule using X-ray diffraction analysis. Koltsov’s other idea, in which he also went from biology to chemistry, also turned out to be prophetic. Based on the idea that he developed that each complex biological molecule arises from a similar existing molecule, he predicted that chemists will take the path of creating new molecules in solutions containing the necessary components of complex molecules, by introducing seeds of ready-made molecules of the same structure into them . He wrote: “I think that only in this way will it be possible to synthesize proteins in vitro, and not just any proteins, but certain ones, that is, the synthesis of which is planned in advance.” Koltsova did not give up the idea of organizing a new scientific institution - the Institute of Experimental Biology.

In 1916 he was elected corresponding member of the RAS. In the same year, the Society of the Moscow Scientific Institute was created, which outlined the organization of several scientific institutions, including experimental biology. In 1917, the institute was created and N.K. Koltsov became its first director (in 1967, having undergone various renamings, the institute was divided into the Institute of Developmental Biology and the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Evolutionary Morphology and Animal Ecology). During the period from 1917 to 1940, the institute became a true center for the creation of a number of new fields of biology and approaches for synthesis between them.

N.K. Koltsov was constantly in the field of view on genetic issues. Back in 1921, he published an experimental work “Genetic analysis of color in guinea pigs"Genetic studies were carried out on Drosophila. In these works, the scientist saw the establishment of the most important connection between genetics and evolutionary teaching. Later, work began on chemical mutagenesis.

N.K. Koltsov deeply understood the importance of genetics for animal husbandry practice. In 1918, he organized the Anikov genetic station, specializing in the genetics of farm animals. Somewhat later it was organized into Tula region another poultry station. At the beginning of 1920, both stations merged into one. In 1925, the station received the name of the Central Station for the Genetics of Farm Animals, whose director was different years was Koltsov and his students. Koltsov’s enormous merit is that he attracted many talented people to work at the station, later known as the creators of entire trends in genetics and breeding individual species farm animals.

After the revolution in 1918, N.K. Koltsov returned to Moscow University (which became known as the First) and taught as a professor until 1930, heading the department of experimental biology. Returning from a business trip abroad in 1930, he learned that during this time the courses he taught had been abolished. But on the basis of his department, 5 departments arose, headed by his students: physiology, histology, genetics, development dynamics, hydrobiology.

In 1927, a meeting of the Commission for the Study of Natural Productive Forces of Russia (KEPS) of the Academy of Sciences was held, at which a decision was made on the need to create the All-Union Institute of Livestock Husbandry. The Institute was opened in 1930 and the Central Genetic Station joined its structure as the selection genetics sector; N.K. Koltsov became the first head of the sector. In 1935, he was elected academician of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences and awarded the degree of Doctor of Zoology.

The last years of the scientist’s life were overshadowed by attacks on some fundamental principles of modern biology and a number of its fields, such as genetics, cytology, etc. They began to deny the role of chromosomes in heredity, those chromosomes to the study of which N.K. Koltsov devoted a significant part of his scientific activity. Being the largest figure in the field of genetics and cytology, N.K. Koltsov, along with N.I. Vavilov, bore the brunt of the blow of the wave of antigenetic and anti-Darwinian dogmatism. In 1938, N.K. Koltsov resigned as head of the Institute of Experimental Biology, to which he devoted 22 years of his life.

Since 1972, the Academy of Sciences began to hold regular Koltsov readings. The Institute of Developmental Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences was named after N.K. Koltsov.