 nikolai ivanovich vavilov formemrs () ( &ndash; january 26, 1943) was a prominent russian and soviet botanist and geneticist best known for having identified the centres of origin of cultivated plants. he devoted his life to the study and improvement of wheat, corn, and other cereal crops that sustain the global population. he was an atheist. ==life== thumb|180px|left|postage stamp, ussr, 1977. vavilov was born into a merchant family in moscow, the older brother of renowned physicist sergey ivanovich vavilov. "the son of a moscow merchant who'd grown up in a poor rural village plagued by recurring crop failures and food rationing, vavilov was obsessed from an early age with ending famine in both his native russia and the world."siebert, charles. 2011. âfood ark.â national geographic. volume 220 (1), july 2011. pages 122-126. he graduated from the moscow agricultural institute in 1910 with a dissertation on snails as pests. from 1911 to 1912, he worked at the bureau for applied botany and at the bureau of mycology and phytopathology. from 1913 to 1914 he travelled in europe and studied plant immunity, in collaboration with the b
1887_births 1943_deaths Academicians_of_the_VASKhNIL Botanists_with_author_abbreviations Deaths_by_starvation Foreign_Members_of_the_Royal_Society People_from_Moscow People_from_Saint_Petersburg Prisoners_who_died_in_Soviet_detention Russian_atheists Russian_botanists Russian_explorers Russian_geneticists Russian_geographers Russian_scientists Soviet_biologists Soviet_geneticists Soviet_geographers Soviet_people_who_died_in_prison_custody