Lev Zilber, the personality and the scientist

Alexey Olovnikov: theoretical biology beyond the margins

Alexey Olovnikov (1936-2022) is an author of the famous marginotomy hypothesis, where he recognized the DNA end replication problem and its role in cell aging. In this biographical note we celebrate the 50th anniversary of this theoretical discovery that later enjoyed a brilliant confirmation and gave rise to a new thriving field of molecular biology and gerontology. We also take a look at the evolution of ideas in Alexey Olovnikov's lifelong quest to uncover the molecular mechanisms of aging, exploring the reasons why he walked away from his initial conclusion about the key role of telomeres in aging, and built a new vast theoretical landscape that linked all stages of ontogenesis.

"If I Were in Nature's Place, I Would Do It Like This..." Life and Hypotheses of Alexey Olovnikov

In this article, we commemorate the life and scientific journey of the brilliant gerontologist-theorist Alexey Olovnikov (1936-2022). In 1971, he published his famous "marginotomy" hypothesis, in which he predicted the replicative shortening of telomeres and its role as a counter of cell divisions and biological age of an organism. This work put forth several remarkable assumptions, including the existence of telomerase, which were confirmed two decades later. Despite this, Alexey Olovnikov moved further in his theoretical studies of aging and proposed a series of new hypotheses that seem no less exotic than the marginotomy hypothesis once appeared. Alexey Olovnikov had an extraordinary way of looking at biological problems and, in addition to aging, authored striking concepts about development, biorhythms, and evolution.

Entangled histories of plague ecology in Russia and the USSR

During the mid-twentieth century, Soviet scientists developed the "natural focus" theory-practice framework to explain outbreaks of diseases (such as bubonic plague) endemic to wild animals and transmitted to humans. Focusing on parasitologist-physician Evgeny N. Pavlovsky and other field scientists' work in the Soviet borderlands, this article explores how the natural focus framework's concepts and practices were entangled in political as well as material ecologies of knowledge and practice. We argue that the very definition of endemic plague incorporated both hands-on materialist experience (including the identification of microbes/pathogens, insects/vectors, and mammals/reservoirs) and ideological concepts that supported Soviet colonization ("improving" hinterlands, "controlling natural focuses of disease," and "sanitizing" landscapes). Theorizing and fighting plague assisted with the goals of controlling and improving landscapes and peoples in southern Russia and Central Asia. The history of the natural focus framework illustrates how Soviet disease ecology co-developed with the needs of local and central political powers in the Soviet borderlands.

Postulation of and evidence for provirus existence in RSV-transformed cells and for an oncogenic activity associated with only part of the RSV genome

This article gives a historical insight into the establishment of suitable models allowing the postulation that chicken Rous sarcoma virus (RSV) becomes integrated in different cells as a provirus. This is documented by the correspondence between two laboratories involved in these investigations. Special attention is paid to RSV-transformed mammalian cells, their virogenic nature, virus rescue by cell fusion, and finally their use for the oncogene v-src characterization. Two sets of experiments are mentioned, which provided an early indication of a transforming gene present in RSV.