Viktor Zhdanov

Born Feb. 1 (13), 1914, in the village of Shtepino, in present-day Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR. Soviet virologist. Academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1960). Member of the CPSU since 1941.

Zhdanov graduated from the Kharkov Medical Institute in 1936. From 1946 to 1950 he was head of the laboratory of the E. Metchnikoff Kharkov Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology and then director of the institute. He became head of the laboratory of the D. I. Ivanovskii Institute of Virology of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR in 1951 and director of the institute in 1961. His principal works deal with viral infections (infectious hepatitis and influenza), the evolution of infectious diseases, classification of viruses, and problems of the molecular biology of viruses. He received the D. I. Ivanovskii Prize in 1969. He has been awarded four orders and various medals.