Vladimir Dmitrievich Timakov

Born June 26 (July 9), 1905, in the village of Pustotino, now in Korablino Raion, Riazan’ Oblast; died June 21, 1977, in Moscow. Soviet microbiologist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1968) and of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1952; corresponding member, 1948); Hero of Socialist Labor (1975). Member of the CPSU from 1941.

In 1929, Timakov graduated from the University of Tomsk. He was on the staff of the Turkmen Medical Institute from 1934 to 1941 and was director of the Ashkhabad Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology from 1938 to 1941. From 1941 to 1945 he was people’s commissar of public health of the Turkmen SSR. From 1945 to 1953 he was director of the N. F. Gamaleia Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR in Moscow; he became head of a department at the institute in 1953. In 1949 he became head of the subdepartment of microbiology at the N. I. Pirogov Second Moscow Medical Institute. He was academician-secretary of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR from 1953 to 1957 and vice-president of the academy from 1957 to 1963. In 1968 he became president of the academy.

Timakov’s major works deal with the regularities of the epidemiological process, the development of prophylactic agents and techniques for infectious diseases, the variability and genetics of microorganisms, theoretical and applied immunology, and problems in virology, including bacteriophagy.

Timakov became a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 1969. He was a delegate to the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Congresses of the CPSU and a deputy to the ninth convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was a corecipient, together with G. Ia. Kagan, of the Lenin Prize in 1974; he received the State Prize of the USSR in 1952. He was awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, two other orders, and various medals.