Mariia Aleksandrovna Vorontsova

Born Nov. 28 (Dec. 11), 1902, in Kazan; died June 19, 1956, in Moscow. Soviet biologist.

Vorontsova graduated from Moscow University in 1926. Between 1928 and 1948 she was an assistant and docent in the subdepartment of general biology in the Second Moscow Medical Institute. From 1931 to 1941 she was a research worker at the Institute of Experimental Morphogenesis, and from 1949 to 1956 she was head of the Growth and Development Laboratory of the Institute of Experimental Biology of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR. Her main works dealt with the experimental study of morphogenesis and especially regeneration phenomena. She determined the significance of the histological components of organs (particularly muscles) in the form development of regenerating organs of amphibians. She laid the foundation for the study in the USSR of the regeneration of internal organs in mammals. She also advanced the regulation theory of the individual development of an organism.