Boris Ilich Zbarskii

Born July 15 (27), 1885, in Kamenets-Podol’sk; died Oct. 7, 1954, in Moscow. Soviet biochemist; academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1944), Hero of Socialist Labor (1945). Graduated from the Universities of Geneva (1911) and St. Petersburg (1912).

From the first years of Soviet power, Zbarskii conducted scientific and organizational work connected with industrial chemistry and public health. In 1918, in collaboration with A. N. Bakh, he formed the L. la. Karpov Chemical Institute, and in 1920 the Biochemical Institute of the Narkomzdrav (People’s Commissariat of Health) of the RSFSR. In 1930 he became the director of the Institute of Nutrition and the head of a subdepartment at the Second Moscow Medical Institute. In 1934 he became a professor at the First Moscow Medical Institute and head of the biochemical laboratory of the Ail-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine. From 1945 to 1952 he directed the cancer biochemistry laboratory of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR. He studied the part played by erythrocytes in the transport and metabolism of amino acids, the role of protein in nutrition, and the amino-acid composition of tissue proteins in physiological and pathological states. He proposed the theory that the basis of malignant tissue growth is a distortion of protein synthesis. He proposed bactericide as an antiseptic preparation. He embalmed the body of V. I. Lenin (in collaboration with V. P. Vorob’ev). In 1949 he headed a group of Soviet scientists who embalmed the body of G. M. Dimitrov. He was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1944. He received three Orders of Lenin, three other orders, and medals.