Vladimir Palladin

Born July 11 (23), 1859, in Moscow; died Feb. 3, 1922, in Petrograd. Russian botanist and biochemist. Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1914; corresponding member, 1905).

In 1883, Palladin graduated from Moscow University, where he was a student of K. A. Timiriazev and I. I. Gorozhankin. He was a professor at the universities of Kharkov (1889), Warsaw (1897), and St. Petersburg (1901–14). Palladin was among those botanists who proposed that plant respiration was the totality of fermentative processes accomplished by oxidases and dehydrogenases. According to Palladin, the first phase of respiration involves the anaerobic decomposition of water and carbohydrates and the reduction of the respiratory chromogens that serve as acceptors and carriers of hydrogen. In the second phase, the oxygen from the air oxidizes the chromogens, which are then converted to respiratory pigments. Palladin also studied the formation of enzymes and the coordination of their activity. He founded a school of plant physiology and biochemistry, whose adherents included S. P. Kostychev, N. A. Maksimov, D. A. Sabinin, S. D. L’vov, and N. N. Ivanov.