18 Facts About Zhores Medvedev

Zhores Aleksandrovich Medvedev was a Russian agronomist, biologist, historian and dissident.

Zhores Medvedev and his twin brother Roy were born on 14 November 1925 in Tbilisi, Transcaucasian SFSR, USSR.

Zhores Medvedev then began his studies in biology at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy in Moscow.

Zhores Medvedev became a junior research scientist in the Agrochemistry and Biochemistry Department at Timiryazev Academy and he was promoted to senior research scientist in 1954 and remained at the academy until 1963.

In 1962, Zhores Medvedev wrote his book on the history of Soviet genetics, which passed an editorial review but was withheld by state censors.

In 1963, Zhores Medvedev moved to Obninsk to the Institute of Medical Radiology, where he was appointed head of the molecular radiobiology laboratory.

Zhores Medvedev published two books, Protein Biosynthesis and Problems of Heredity Development and Ageing and Molecular Mechanisms of Development.

Between 1968 and 1970, Zhores Medvedev wrote two more books: International Cooperation of Scientists and National Frontiers and Secrecy of Correspondence is Guaranteed by Law.

In 1971, Zhores Medvedev was given the job of senior scientist of the Institute of Physiology and Biochemistry of Farm Animals in Borovsk, in the Kaluga region.

In 1972, Zhores Medvedev was invited for one year's research by the National Institute for Medical Research in London at its new Genetic Division.

Zhores Medvedev remained in London and worked as senior research scientist at the National Institute for Medical Research until his retirement in 1991.

In 1977, Zhores Medvedev published Hazards of Nuclear Power, which mentioned the Kyshtym nuclear disaster in passing.

Zhores Medvedev responded by publishing Soviet Science in 1978, which assembled evidence from Soviet publications that taken together comprised conclusive evidence of the disaster's occurrence.

Zhores Medvedev followed this with the book The Nuclear Disaster in the Urals in 1979, and a further critique The Legacy of Chernobyl, which connected the two disasters as being a product of the same attitudes toward science and engineering in the USSR.

In London, Zhores Medvedev acted as his brother Roy's representative, managing his publishing contracts and financial affairs.

Zhores Medvedev died in London on 15 November 2018, one day after his 93rd birthday, with his family by his side.

Zhores Medvedev published about 170 research papers and reviews, about sixty of them during his time in London.

Zhores Medvedev received the Aging Research Award from the United States Association of Biogerontology in 1984 and the Rene Schubert Prize in Gerontology in 1985.