Gerasimov, Ivan
Gerasimov, Ivan Ivanovich
Born 1867; died circa 1920. Russian botanist and cytologist.
Gerasimov graduated from Moscow University in 1892 and was a student of I. N. Gorozhankin. He was one of the pioneers of research in cell physiology and cytogenetics. He was the first to demonstrate experimental polyploidy, which he caused by cooling dividing cells of the green alga Spirogyra and treating them with anesthetizing substances. He discovered the influence of increased nuclear mass on the growth and dimensions of cells and established the correlation between the mass of the protoplasm, chromatophores, and the nucleus.