Palladin, Aleksandr

Born Aug. 29 (Sept. 10), 1885, in Moscow; died Dec. 6, 1972, in Kiev. Soviet biochemist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1942), of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1929; president, 1946–62), and of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1944). Honorary Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Byelorussian SSR (1950). Hero of Socialist Labor (1955). Member of the CPSU from 1932. Founder of the Ukrainian school of biochemists. Son of V. I. Palladin.

Palladin graduated from the University of St. Petersburg in 1908. From 1916 he was a professor at the Institute of Agriculture and Forestry in Kharkov, and from 1921 a professor at the Kharkov Medical Institute. In 1925 he became director of the Ukrainian Biochemical Institute (since 1931 the Institute of Biochemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR), which was created on his initiative. From 1934 to 1954 he was a professor at the University of Kiev. His principal works were on the biochemistry of vitamins, the metabolism of intracellular carbohydrates and phosphorus, and the comparative biochemistry of nervous tissue and the brain during various functional states.

Palladin served as deputy to the second through fifth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was an honorary member of the academies of sciences of Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania and a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the V. I. Lenin Award (1929), five Orders of Lenin, an Order of the October Revolution, three other orders, and various medals.