Kuzin, Aleksandr Mikhailovich

Born May 17 (30), 1906, in Moscow. Soviet biochemist and radiobiologist; corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1960). Member of the CPSU since 1946.

Kuzin graduated from the First Moscow State University in 1929. He was with the First Moscow Medical Institute from 1930 to 1938 and a professor and subdepartment chairman at the Third Moscow Medical Institute from 1938 to 1951 (with an interruption). Between 1952 and 1958 he was director and then radiobiology division head of the Institute of Biophysics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He was editor in chief of the journal Biofizika until 1961, and he has had the same position with Radiobiologiia since 1961.

Kuzin’s main works deal with the biochemical and molecular bases for the effect of ionizing radiation on living organisms (in particular, of radiation injury on the cell). He discovered the formation of growth inhibitors in irradiated plant tissues (1968), and he elaborated the structural-metabolic hypothesis of radiobiology.

Kuzin has been awarded two orders and several medals.