Fedorov, Mikhail

Born Sept. 30 (Oct. 12), 1898, in the village of Stan, now in Likhoslavl’ Raion, Kalinin Oblast; died Mar. 20, 1961, in Moscow. Soviet microbiologist. Corresponding member of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1956).

Fedorov graduated from the Tver’ Pedagogical Institute in 1926. In 1929 he worked at the K. A. Timiriazev Institute of Biology, and from 1929 to 1961 at the K. A. Timiriazev Moscow Agricultural Academy, where he was a professor from 1940 and head of the department of microbiology from 1950. His research work dealt primarily with the biosynthesis of organic acids in mold fungi and the physiology and chemistry of bacterial metabolism of molecular nitrogen. Fedorov was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1952 for his monograph “Biological Fixation of Atmospheric Nitrogen” (1948). He was also awarded the Order of Lenin and various medals.