Sergei Winogradsky

Winogradsky was born in Kiev (then in the Russian Empire). In this early stage of his life, Winogradsky was "strictly devoted to the orthodox faith", though he later became irreligious.[6]

He entered the Imperial Conservatoire of Music in St Petersburg in 1875 to study piano.[1] However, after two years of music training, he entered the University of Saint Petersburg in 1877 to study chemistry under Nikolai Menshutkin and botany under Andrei Sergeevich Famintzin.[1]

He received a diploma in 1881 and stayed at the St. Petersburg University for a degree of master of science in botany in 1884. In 1885, he began work at the University of Strasbourg under the renowned botanist Anton de Bary; Winogradsky became renowned for his work on sulfur bacteria.

In 1888, he relocated to Zurich, where he began investigation into the process of nitrification, identifying the genera Nitrosomonas and Nitrosococcus, which oxidizes ammonium to nitrite, and Nitrobacter, which oxidizes nitrite to nitrate.[7]

He returned to St. Petersburg for the period 1891–1905, and headed the division of general microbiology of the Institute of Experimental Medicine. During this period, he identified the obligate anaerobe Clostridium pasteurianum, which is capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen. In St. Petersburg, he trained his only student und assistant Vasily Omelianski which popularized Winogradskys concepts and methodology in the Soviet Union during the next decades.[8]

In 1901, he was elected honorary member of the Moscow Society of Naturalists and, in 1902, corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences.

He retired from active scientific work in 1905, dividing his time between his private estate and Switzerland. In 1922, he accepted an invitation to head the division of agricultural bacteriology at the Pasteur Institute at an experimental station at Brie-Comte-Robert, France, about 30 km from Paris. During this period, he worked on a number of topics, among them iron bacteria, nitrifying bacteria, nitrogen fixation by Azotobacter, cellulose-decomposing bacteria, and culture methods for soil microorganisms. Winogradsky retired from active life in 1940 and died in Brie-Comte-Robert in 1953.

Winogradsky discovered various biogeochemical cycles and parts of these cycles. These discoveries include

• His work on bacterial sulfide oxidation for which he first became renowned, including the first known form of lithotrophy (in Beggiatoa).
• His work on the Nitrogen cycle including
  • The identification of the obligate anaerobe Clostridium pasteurianum is a free living microbe capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen and not living in legume root nodules.
  • Chemosynthesis – his most noted discovery
  • The Winogradsky column[9]

Nitrogen cycle

• Hermann Hellriegel
• Martinus Beijerinck

• Moshynets, O. (April 2013). "From Winogradsky's column to contemporary research using bacterial microcosms.". Microcosms: Ecology, Biological Implications and Environmental Impact. Harris, C.C. (eds.). Nova. pp. 1–27.
• Ackert, Lloyd. Sergei Vinogradskii and the Cycle of Life: From the Thermodynamics of Life to Ecological Microbiology, 1850-1950. Vol. 34.; Dordrecht; London: Springer, 2013.
• Ackert, L. (2006). "The Role of Microbes in Agriculture: Sergei Vinogradskii's Discovery and Investigation of Chemosynthesis, 1880–1910". Journal of the History of Biology. 39 (2): 373–406. doi:10.1007/s10739-006-0008-2. S2CID 84400593.
• Ackert, L. (2007). "The 'Cycle of Life' in Ecology: Sergei Vinogradskii's Soil Microbiology, 1885–1940". Journal of the History of Biology. 40: 109–145. doi:10.1007/s10739-006-9104-6. S2CID 128410978.
• Waksman, S. A. (1946). "Sergei Nikolaevitch Winogradsky: The study of a great bacteriologist". Soil Science. 62: 197–226. doi:10.1097/00010694-194609000-00001. S2CID 94545224.

• Sergei Winogradsky at Cycle of Life website including images.