Filatov, Dmitrii Petrovich

Born Jan. 31 (Feb. 12), 1876, in the village of Teplyi Stan, now the village of Sechenovo, Gorky Oblast; died Jan. 18, 1943, in Moscow. Soviet embryologist.

Filatov graduated from Moscow University in 1900. From 1902 to 1906 he was an assistant at the Institute of Comparative Anatomy of Moscow University, and from 1907 to 1919 he intermittently served as an instructor at the Moscow Institute of Agriculture (now the K. A. Timiriazev Moscow Agricultural Academy). In 1924, Filatov became head of the laboratory of developmental mechanics at the Institute of Experimental Biology (later the Institute of Cytology, Histology, and Embryology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR). He also directed the laboratory of experimental embryology at the Institute of Experimental Morphogenesis at Moscow University from 1931 to 1941, becoming a professor at the university in 1937. In 1940, Filatov became head of the subdepartment of embryology that he had earlier founded at Moscow State University.

In 1916, Filatov discovered the inductive action exerted by the auditory vesicle on embryonic mesenchyme during the formation of the auditory capsule. This discovery marked the beginning of experimental embryology in Russia. Filatov studied the developmental mechanics of the eye from 1925 to 1936 and the differentiation of the extremities from 1927 to 1932. His main works were comparative experimental studies on the patterns of individual development and on the evolution of morphogenetic interactions among the parts of the developing embryo. Filatov traveled on expeditions to study the ecology of the Northern Caucasian wisent (1909–11), to count the northern fur seal population of the Komandorskie Islands (1913–14), and to study the Aral Sea fisheries (1921–22).