Grigory Moiseevich Mairanovsky | |
---|---|
Григорий Моисеевич Майрановский | |
Born | 1899 |
Died | 1964 (age 64 or 65)
Makhachkala,
Dagestan ASSR, RSFSR, USSR |
Nationality | Soviet Union |
Known for | establishing NKVD poison study program |
Grigory Moiseevich Mairanovsky ( Russian: Григо́рий Моисе́евич Майрано́вский, 1899, Batumi – 1964) was a Soviet biochemist and poison developer. [1]
Mairanovsky was born to a Jewish family in Batumi in 1899. [2]
Mairanovsky was the head of several secret laboratories in the Bach Institute of Biochemistry in Moscow (1928–1935). As the head of Laboratory No. 1 (1938–1946), he initiated the secret poison program conducted by the NKVD. He used political prisoners for experiments with poisons. His classified PhD thesis defended in 1940 was entitled " Biological activity of the products of interaction of mustard gas with [human] skin tissues". [3]
Mairanovsky participated personally in political assassinations as a member of Pavel Sudoplatov's team in the 1940s, [4] [5] [6] including assassination of Isaiah Oggins.
He was arrested as a part of the doctors' plot in 1951, [7] in connection with the case of Viktor Abakumov, and spent 10 years in prison. After his release, he headed a biochemical laboratory in Makhachkala, Dagestan ASSR.
He appears as a character in the Russian film Prediction by Eldar Ryazanov and has a tiny cameo mention in The Eighth Life, the prize-winning epic novel by Nino Haratischwili. [8]