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Russian Journal of Developmental Biology, Vol. 33, No. 5, 2002, pp. 322–323. Translated from Ontogenez, Vol. 33, No. 5, 2002, pp. 393–394.Original Russian Text Copyright © 2002 by Korochkin.

Georgii Viktorovich Lopashov, an outstanding Rus-sian embryologist, is 90 years old. He dedicated hisentire life to science. His works on developmental biol-ogy and genetics are well known in our country andabroad and constitute a great contribution to the worldbiology and genetics.

Lopashov was born in Moscow on May 17, 1912.He was growing and studying during the hard time ofbolshevist dictatorship. He had brilliant ability formusic but could not receive musical education and,instead, “forced” in science. After he graduated fromthe seven-year school, he had to earn for life. And atthat time, one of the most important events in his lifehappened. He began working as a technician withYu.M. Vermel at the Biological Laboratory and wasrecommended to work in the field of developmentalbiology under the supervision of the founder of theRussian experimental embryology D.P. Filatov. In 1929he tried to pass exams at the Moscow State Universitybut was not accepted as a “class-alien” element. How-ever, thanks to the protection of Yu.M. Vermel (whowas later repressed by bolsheviks), he completed hisstudies at the Moscow State University and beganworking at the Institute of Experimental Morphogene-sis and, in 1933, moved to the famous Institute ofExperimental Biology headed by great N.K. Kol’tsov.G.V. Lopashov remembers the years in this Institutewith special warmth as a good luck in his scientific life.

After several preliminary studies (1935), Lopashovtried to follow a nascent molecular biology. This inview, he tried to answer the question whether the“killed” (by alcohol) eye rudiments were able to releasesubstances that induced the eyes, rather than lenses. Heanswered this question positively (1936) but could notgo further and isolate the inducing substances.

These experiments served as a basis for studying therole of factors released by the eye cells in their own dif-ferentiation. It was shown that the pure pigment epithe-lium of tadpoles and adult frogs in the posterior cavityof their eyes, like in the retina clefts, transformed intoretina (Lopashov, 1949; Lopashov and Sologub, 1972).However, this could be due to the stimulation of prolif-eration of the pigment epithelium cells. But it wasshown in further experiments that the pigment epithe-lium covered by the lens epithelium differentiated intolentoids or retina with respect to whether these com-plexes were cultivated in a protein-free medium ortransplanted at once into the eye orbit (Lopashov,1983).

In 1965, the Institute of Developmental Biology wasorganized under the leadership of the outstandingdevelopmental biologist academician B.L. Astaurovand Lopashov got his own laboratory at this Institute. In1980, together with his laboratory he moved to theVavilov Institute of general Genetics and then to thenewly organized Institute of Biology of the Gene,where he is successfully working. During this period,Lopashov proposed that since the retinal cells releasesubstances capable of inducing transformation of thepigment epithelium into retina, it could not be excludedthat they induce retina in the gastrula ectoderm as well.This suggestion was confirmed in the experiment ontransfilter influence of

Xenopus

eye rudiments on thegastrula ectoderm (Lopashov

et al

., 1997). This workgave rise to the experiments in which lens epitheliumwas used for transfilter induction in the gastrula ecto-derm, as well as cardiomyocytes that induced similarcells (Golubeva and Lopashov, 1996). This series wascompleted by the experiments, in which the inductivecapacity of retinal cell infusion was tested, which mark-edly exceeded the transfilter inductions (Golubeva andLopashov, 1999).

During this period, the experiments were also car-ried out on direct induction by dissociated cells of theeye rudiment of

Xenopus

embryos in the gastrula ecto-derm. The results obtained suggest that, while intactrudiments did not induce lenses, their dissociated cellscould induce them. This can be explained by that theintact eye rudiments have a membrane on the surface,

JUBILEES

To 90th Birthday of Georgii Viktorovich Lopashov

RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY

Vol. 33

No. 5

2002

TO 90th BIRTHDAY OF GEORGII VIKTOROVICH LOPASHOV 323

which does not allow the passage of inducing factorsand this can explain many controversies in studies oflens induction (Lopashov and Zemchikhina, 1997).

At the same time, it became clear that for under-standing of the appearance of new cell type duringdevelopment it does not suffice to carry out experi-ments, but the experiments should be redesigned afterrevision of the current concepts as a whole. And Lopa-shov undertook an attempt to develop a generalizedconcept of the mechanisms underlying the formation ofcell types and their position in the animal body (Lopa-shov and Zemchikhina, 1997, 2000).

Classic publications belong to G.V. Lopashov,including some monographs on current problems ofdevelopmental genetics and experimental embryology.Few know that the method nuclear transplantation,whose development led to cloning in mammals, wasproposed by Lopashov long before Briggs and King, towhom the priority is assigned. In spring 1948 Lopashovwrote a review paper on the results of his experiments,but after the shameful VASKhNIL session in August1948, the paper was never published. Still, the tracesconfirming our priority remained in the form of abstractpublished in

Referaty rabot biologicheskogo otdeleniyaAN SSSR

(Abstracts of Work of the Biology Division,USSR Academy of Sciences) (Moscow, 1945, pp. 88–89) and in the

Doklady AN SSSR

in English (Comptesrendues de l’Academie des Sciences de l’URSS, 1948,vol. 52, no. 4). In 1946, his paper was published in the

Doklady AN SSSR

, while the papers by Briggs and Kingwere published only in 1952, i.e., seven years after thefirst publication of G.V. Lopashov.

Lopashov’s operation is mentioned in many text-books on developmental biology, which is still used instudies of the mechanism of embryonic induction.Lopashov was one of the first to describe the fundamen-tal law of so-called minimal mass, which is essential forrealization of primary embryonic induction. Finally,several years before Burnett, Lopashov formulated in

general features the clonal theory of immunity (Lopa-shov and Stroeva, 1950).

Georgii Viktorovich Lopashov is meeting his 90thbirthday in full vigor. He is full of ideas and plans and,as always, bound up in work. Let us wish him goodhealth and success in research!

REFERENCES

Golubeva, O.N. and Lopashov, G.V., Induction of Autono-mously Contracting Muscle cells in Early Gastrula Ectodermby Live Cardiomyocytes of an Adult Frog,

Dokl. Ross. Akad.Nauk

, 1996, vol. 348, pp. 560–563.Golubeva, O.N. and Lopashov, G.V., Inductive Capacity ofSubstances released by Live Retina in Culture,

Dokl. Ross.Akad. Nauk

, 1999, vol. 369, pp. 401–405.Lopashov, G.V., Trasnplantation of Components of theOocyte Nuclei in Fertilized Eggs of Newts,

Dokl. Akad. NaukSSSR

, 1946, vol. 52, pp. 365–368.Lopashov, G.V.,

Mekhanizmy razvitiya glas v embriogenezepozvonochnykh

(Mechanisms of Eye Development inEmbryogenesis of Vertebrates), Moscow: Akad. Nauk SSSR,1960.Lopashov, G.V. and Stroeva, O.G., Development of Immuno-logical reactions and problem of Tissue Incompatibility inTransplantations,

Uspekhi Sovrem. Biol

., 1950, vol. 27,pp.

440–450.Lopashov, G.V. and Stroeva, O.G.,

Razvitie glaza v svete eks-perimental’nykh issledovanii

(Development of the Eye in theLight of Experimental Studies), Moscow: Akad. Nauk SSSR,1963.Lopashov, G.V. and Zemchikhina, V.N., Hierarchy of Induc-tive Events,

Devel. Growth Differ

., 1997, vol. 39,pp. 661

−

665.Lopashov, G.V. and Zemchikhina, V.N., Main factors andPeriods of Inductive Processes in Development,

UspekhiSovrem. Biol

., 2000, vol. 120, pp. 540–549.Lopashov, G.V., Golubeva, O.N., and Zviadadze, K.B.,Inductive Capacity of Living Eye Tissues from Adult Frogs,

Differentiation

, 1997, vol. 61, pp. 237–242.

L.I. Korochkin