Nikolai Koltsov and his work, which anticipated many ideas in modern cellular and molecular biology, genetics, and epigenetics. Toward the 100th anniversary of the concept of template biosynthesis

Abstract

Nikolai Konstantinovich Koltsov (1872–1940) lived and worked in an epoch when biology was rapidly transitioning from a descriptive to an experimental science. Koltsov foresaw and, to some extent, predetermined the development of the most important areas of modern biology: evolutionary genetics and synthetic theory of evolution, mutagenesis, human genetics, cellular and molecular biology, developmental genetics, developmental biology, and epigenetics. He had visionary ideas about "template synthesis", which underlies the process of copying genes and the possible involvement of methylation in the modification of molecules of biological inheritance. For political reasons, the development of his scientific school in the USSR was terminated, and his name was forgotten for several decades. The scientific legacy of Nikolai Koltsov remains relevant in our days.