Georgii Dmitrievich Karpechenko (1899 in

Velsk Velsk (russian: Вельск) is a town and the administrative center of Velsky District in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, located on the left bank of the Vel River at its confluence with the Vaga River, south of Arkhangelsk, the administrative ce ...

Vologda Governorate Vologda Governorate (russian: link=no, Вологодская губерния, ''Vologodskaya guberniya'', ''Government of Vologda'') was an administrative division (a '' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire and the Russian SFSR, which existed fr ...

– July 28, 1941) was a Russian and

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

biologist. His name has sometimes been transliterated as Karpetschenko. 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, 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 in Denmark and

Erwin Baur Erwin Baur (16 April 1875, in Neuried, 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 (since 1 ...

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 (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

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 agronomist, botanist ...

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

See also

Notes

References