Vitalii Leonidovich Ryzhkov

Born June 18 (30), 1896, in the village of Buryn’, now a city in Sumy Oblast; died Aug. 12, 1977, in Moscow. Soviet biologist and botanist, he was corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1946).

From 1922 to 1930, Ryzhkov worked at the Artem Communist University in Kharkov; he organized the university’s sub-department of general biology. He headed the subdepartment of botany at the Simferopol’ Pedagogical Institute (now the M. V. Frunze University) from 1930 to 1933 and the subdepartment of general biology and genetics at the University of Kharkov from 1933 to 1937. Ryzhkov also held positions at the Institute of Microbiology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1936–1968) and the D. I. Ivanovskii Virology Institute of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1945–1958).

Ryzhkov’s principal topics of study were plant viruses, virus classification, the genetics of sex, the teratology of the flower, mottling of leaves, and theoretical biology (including the molecular bases of memory). In 1930 he founded the first laboratory in the USSR for the study of viral diseases of plants (Simferopol’). A recipient of the State Prize of the USSR in 1946, Ryzhkov was also awarded two Orders and various medals.