Boris Lvovich Astaurov (27 October 1904 – 21 June 1974) was a Soviet and Russian biologist and geneticist who worked on breeding experiments including pioneering work on silkworms, in which he demonstrated the induction of parthenogenesis, polyploidy, and cloning. He produced fertile tetraploid hybrids of the silkworm species ''

Bombyx mori ''Bombyx mori'', commonly known as the domestic silk moth, is a moth species belonging to the family Bombycidae. It is the closest relative of '' Bombyx mandarina'', the wild silk moth. Silkworms are the larvae of silk moths. The silkworm is of ...

'' and ''Bombyx'' ''mandarina''. Astaurov was among the few Mendelian geneticists who survived Stalin's purge.

Life and work

Astaurov was born in Moscow to

eye surgeon Eye surgery, also known as ophthalmic surgery or ocular surgery, is surgery performed on the eye or its adnexa. Eye surgery is part of ophthalmology and is performed by an ophthalmologist or eye surgeon. The eye is a fragile organ, and requires ...

Lev M. Astaurov and

gynaecologist Gynaecology or gynecology (see American and British English spelling differences) is the area of medicine concerned with conditions affecting the female reproductive system. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, which focuses on pre ...

Olga A. Tikhenko. His father had trained in Kazan while his mother had studied in Sorbonne and Lyon and the family ran a private medical practice. Astaurov went to the Flerov gymnasium where his contemporaries included B.V. Kedrovsky,

Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky Nikolay Vladimirovich Timofeev-Ressovsky (; – 28 March 1981) was a Soviet biologist who, in principle, was a senior scientist in Soviet programs of nuclear and, later in biological weapons. He conducted research in radiation genetics, exp ...

Alexander Gurwitsch Alexander Gavrilovich Gurwitsch, sometimes Gurvich or Gurvitch (Russian: Александр Гаврилович Гурвич; 1874–1954) was a Russian and later Soviet biologist and medical scientist who originated the morphogenetic field theor ...

, and G.K. Khrushchov. Astaurov was very good at drawing and learned piano with

Boris Chaliapin Boris Chaliapin (Russian: Борис Фёдорович Шаля́пин; September 22, 1904 – May 18, 1979) was an artist for ''Time'' magazine, for which he illustrated more than 400 covers, from 1942 (Jawaharlal Nehru) to Richard Nixon). Ba ...

under professor Feodor Koenemann. After graduating in 1921 he joined the Moscow University and after receiving a degree in 1927 he went to study zoology under N. K. Koltsov. In 1926 he went to work in the laboratory of Sergei Chetverikov, to study the genetics of ''Drosophila'' populations. His studies were on the mutant ''tetraptera'' with four wings. He went to study the genetics and breeding of Arabian and Bactrian camels in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan from 1928 to 1929. His PhD could not be completed due to the arrest and deportation of Chetverikov based on the allegations made by

Trofim Lysenko Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (; , ; 20 November 1976) was a Soviet agronomist and scientist.''An ill-educated agronomist with huge ambitions, Lysenko failed to become a real scientist, but greatly succeeded in exposing of the “bourgeois enemies o ...

that Mendelian geneticists were fascists under Stalin's rule. Astaurov moved to Tashkent and joined the sericulture and silk research institute there. He demonstrated artificially induced parthenogenesis in silkworm eggs. In 1936 he returned to Moscow and was able to complete his doctorate. In 1942, after the death of Dmitriy Filatov, Astaurov continued to work at the Laboratory of Developmental Mechanics in Moscow and was made head of the department from 1947. After 1948, although not directly targeted by Lysenko, he was decreed to not work on silkworm but instead to study fish. After Stalin's death, he returned to study silkworm. The Tenth Genetics Congress at Montreal included a Soviet delegation consisting of Lysenkoists with the exception of Astaurov who refused to join the delegation. In 1974, a researcher working with Astaurov went to attend a meeting in Italy and defected. Astaurov was called to a meeting of the Soviet Academy where he was questioned about the "unpatriotic act" of his collaborator. He returned home from the meeting and died from a heart failure.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Astaurov, Boris 1904 births 1974 deaths Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Moscow State University alumni Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour 20th-century Russian biologists Russian geneticists Soviet biologists Soviet geneticists Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery