Nikolay Gamaleya

Nikolay Fyodorovich Gamaleya (russian: Никола́й Фёдорович Гамале́я; – 29 March 1949) was a Russian and Soviet physician and scientist who played a pioneering role in microbiology and vaccine research.

Biography

Gamaleya was born in Odessa, then part of the Russian Empire. He graduated from Odessa's Novorossiysky University (now Odessa University) in 1880 and the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy (now the S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy) in 1883. He became a respected hospital physician in his native Odessa afterward.

Gamaleya worked in Louis Pasteur's laboratory in France in 1886. Following Pasteur's model after his return, he joined Ilya Mechnikov in organizing an Odessa bacteriological station for rabies vaccination studies and research on combating cattle plague and cholera, diagnosing sputum for tuberculosis, and preparing anthrax vaccines.Zalkind, Semyon (2001). ''Ilya Mechnikov: His Life and Work''. Honolulu, Hawaii: University Press of the Pacific. pp. 96-98. . The Odessa Bacteriological Institute became Russia's first-ever bacteriological observation station.

Despite the poor facilities and the small staff, the scientists were able to succeed in figuring out the conditions under which the rabies vaccination was most effective. Gamaleya's proposal for using killed bacilli in anti-cholera vaccines was later successfully applied on a wide scale as well. Similar stations were soon founded in Kiev (1886), Yekaterinoslav (1897), and Chernigov (1897).

After defending his 1892 dissertation on the etiology of cholera (published in 1893), Gamaleya served as director of the Odessa Bacteriological Institute in 1896-1908. Reporting of the lysis of ''Bacillus anthracis'' bacteria by a transmissible "ferment" in 1898, Gamaleya was the discoverer of the bacteria-destroying antibodies known as bacteriolysins.Melikishvili, Alexander (2008)
"Annex: Biosketches of Scientists and Other Public Figures Who Played Important Roles in the Evolution of Tsarist Russia’s Anti-Plague System".
In Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley, Alexander Melikishvili, and Raymond A. Zilinskas
The Soviet Anti-Plague System
James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Retrieved 26 February 2011.

Gamaleya initiated a public health campaign of exterminating rats to fight the plague in Odessa and southern Russia and pointed to the louse as the carrier of typhus.Podolsky, Edward (1972). ''Red Miracle: The Story of Soviet Medicine''. New York: Beechhurst Press. p. 222. . In 1910-1913, Gamaleya edited the journal ''Gigiena i sanitariya'' (''Hygiene and Sanitation'').

Gamaleya's later work, including organizing the supply and distribution of smallpox vaccines for the Red Army, made strides toward the eventual eradication of smallpox in the USSR.Podolsky, Edward (1972). ''Red Miracle: The Story of Soviet Medicine''. New York: Beechhurst Press. p. 224. .

The author of more than 300 academic publications on bacteriology, Gamaleya was a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences. He also served as head of the All-Union Society of Microbiologists, Epidemiologists and Infectionists.

The highly regarded Gamaleya's state honors included two Lenin Orders, the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, and the 1943 State Stalin Prize.

Gamaleya died in Moscow.

The N. F. Gamaleya Federal Research Center for Epidemiology & Microbiology in Moscow is named after him.

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1859 births
1949 deaths
Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery
Honorary Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Academicians of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences
Physicians from Odesa
Stalin Prize winners
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
Russian bacteriologists
Russian microbiologists
Russian medical researchers
Soviet bacteriologists
Soviet microbiologists
Ukrainian bacteriologists
Ukrainian microbiologists
Odesa University alumni
S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy alumni
{{Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology