Sergei Chetverikov

Sergei Sergeevich Chetverikov (1880-1959) was one of founders of genetics in natural populations and hence a contributor to the synthetic theory of evolution. Some of his ideas have stood the test of time, and some have not: he was generally right about mutation and the importance of natural selection, but wrong about polymorphism (see polymorphism (biology). However, to have entered this field at all at that time was noteworthy.

Between the two World Wars Russian biological research managed to connect genetics with field research on natural populations. Chetverikov lead a team at the Koltsov Institute in Moscow, and in 1926 produced what should have been one of the landmark papers of the modern evolutionary synthesis. However, published only in Russian, it was largely ignored in the English-speaking world (though J.B.S. Haldane possessed a translation). Chetverikov influenced several Russian geneticists who later came to work in the West, such as Theodosius Dobzhansky and Timofeev-Ressovsky, both of whom continued to work in a similar style. The significance of Chetverikov's work came to light much later, by which time the evolutionary synthesis was virtually complete.

Sergei Chetverikov worked at Nikolai Koltsov Institute of Experimental Biology. He was arrested by OGPU in 1929 and sent to exile to Yekaterinburg for five years. He later moved to Nizhny Novgorod and organized the Department of Genetics at Gorky University. He was dismissed from his post at the behest of Lysenko in 1948.