Vavilov, NikolaiIvanovich

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Vavilov, NikolaiIvanovich (1887–1943)A Russian plant geneticist whose extensive field studies, in Iran, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, China, and Central and South America, led him to the view that the greatest variation in species occurs in certain restricted areas (centres of diversity) which he believed identified the regions in which those species originated (centres of origin). He returned from his travels with a large collection of specimens he intended to use for study and to breed new varieties. He was professor of botany at the University of Saratov (1917–21) and later became head of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1929, and a foreign member of the Royal Society of London in 1942. He was opposed by T. D.Lysenko, who had him removed from his positions in 1940, and Vavilov is believed to have spent the years from 1940 in prison and to have died at Magadan, Siberia.

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