Georgii Dmitrievich Karpechenko, sometimes Karpetschenko (

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

: Георгий Дмитриевич Карпеченко; 21 April 1899 – 28 July 1941) was a Russian and

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

biologist. G. D. Karpechenko specialized in plant

cytology Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living an ...

and created several hybrids. Among his contributions is his seminal work on

allopolyploids Polyploidy is a condition in which the cells of an organism have more than two paired sets of ( homologous) chromosomes. Most species whose cells have nuclei (eukaryotes) are diploid, meaning they have two complete sets of chromosomes, one from ...

, culminating in his creation of a fertile offspring of radishes and cabbages, the first instance of a new species obtained through polyploid speciation during experimental crossbreeding. Wang, Y., Scarth, R. and Campbell, C. 2005. Interspecific hybridization between diploid ''Fagopyrum esculentum'' and tetraploid ''F. homotropicum''. Canadian Journal of Plant Science 85: 41–48 (includes a description of Karpechenko's results). He worked at the Institute of Applied Botany near Leningrad, but collaborated with geneticists in other countries, notably

Øjvind Winge Øjvind Winge (19 May 1886 – 5 April 1964) was a Danish biologist and a pioneer in yeast genetics. Education Winge was born in the city of Aarhus in Jutland, the mainland of Denmark. After completing secondary school he travelled to the Univer ...

in Denmark and

Erwin Baur Erwin Baur (16 April 1875, in Ichenheim, Grand Duchy of Baden – 2 December 1933) was a German geneticist and botanist. Baur worked primarily on plant genetics. He was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research (then in Mü ...

in Germany.Karpechenko, G.D., 1927. ''The production of polyploid gametes in hybrids''. Hereditas 9, 349–368. He also travelled abroad to the

John Innes Horticultural Institution The John Innes Centre (JIC), located in Norwich, Norfolk, England, is an independent centre for research and training in plant and microbial science founded in 1910. It is a registered charity (No 223852) grant-aided by the Biotechnology and B ...

in London. He was arrested by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

under the false grounds of belonging to an alleged "anti-Soviet group" centered on the well known Russian botanist

Nikolai Vavilov Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov ( rus, Никола́й Ива́нович Вави́лов, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ vɐˈvʲiləf, a=Ru-Nikolay_Ivanovich_Vavilov.ogg; – 26 January 1943) was a Russian and Soviet Union, Soviet agronom ...

who was his colleague at Leningrad. He was sentenced to death and executed on July 28, 1941.

Notes

References

*Birstein, Vadim J. ''The Perversion of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science''. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2001. *Bentley Glass, ''The Grim Heritage of Lysenkoism'', The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 65, No. 4 (December, 1990), pp. 413–421, refers to "Karpechenko's defense of genetics when it was first assailed by Lysenko", *Karpechenko, G.D., ''Polyploid hybrids of Raphanus sativus X Brassica oleracea L., Bulletin of Applied Botany. 17:305-408 (1927). *Karpechenko, G.D., 1928. ''Polyploid hybrids of Raphanus sativus L. X Brassica oleracea L.'' Zeitschrift für induktive Abstammungs- und Vererbungslehre 48, 1–85.
Reprinted in: Jules Janick, ed. 1989. Classic papers in horticultural science. The Blackburn Press
Publisher's listing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Karpechenko, Georgii 1899 births 1941 deaths People from Velsk People from Velsky Uyezd Soviet botanists Horticulturists Executed Soviet people from Russia Russian people executed by the Soviet Union Executed people from Arkhangelsk Oblast Soviet inventors People executed by the Soviet Union by firing squad Russian scientists

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