(Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), 2005-05) Grossman, ES
On 10 September 2005, we celebrate the centenary of the birth of Boris Ivan
Balinsky, one of the best-known and most respected embryologists of the
twentieth century. Through his remarkable and painstaking research, he laid the
foundation of developmental biology as we know it today. Balinsky was a man
whose research was shaped by his time, and for the first half of his working life this
was dictated largely by the turbulence of the Russian Revolution and later by the
instability of the SecondWorldWar. Soviet life depended on the whims of the man
in power at any given time: thus, the course of Balinsky’s research was directed
according to the situation in which he found himself and the facilities available
to him. It is due to his insight, single-mindedness, ability to adapt, hands-on
approach and meticulous technique that he managed to achieve the noteworthy
research and groundbreaking findings in the years prior to, and after, his move to
the West.