Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich (1898-1976)

Soviet biologist who believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics (changes acquired in an individual's lifetime) and used his position under Joseph Stalin officially to exclude Gregor Mendel's theory of inheritance. He was removed from office after the fall of Nikita Khrushchev in 1964.

As leader of the Soviet scientific world, Lysenko encouraged the defence of mechanistic views about the nature of heredity and speciation. This created an environment conducive to the spread of unverified facts and theories, such as the doctrine of the noncellular ‘living’ substance and the transformation of viruses into bacteria. Research in several areas of biology came to a halt.

Lysenko was born in Karlovka in the Russian Ukraine, and educated at the Uman School of Horticulture and the Kiev Agricultural Institute. From 1929 to 1938 he held senior positions at the Ukrainian All-Union Institute of Selection and Genetics in Odessa, becoming director of the Institute of Genetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1940. In 1965 he was removed from his post and stripped of all authority.

By advocating vernalization (a method of making seeds germinate quickly in the spring), Lysenko achieved considerable increases in crop yields, and this was the basis of his political support. As his influence increased, he enlarged the scope of his theories, using his authority to remove any opposition.