Alexander Gurvich

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Alexander Gavrilovich Gurwitsch, also Gurvich (Russian: Александр Гаврилович Гурвич 1874 - 1954), a famous Russian biologist and medical scientist. He made a discovery of an ultraweak photon emission from the living systems. This gave rise to biophotonics. He is a founder of morphogenetic field theory.

In 1918-1924 he was a Professor of Histology in Taurida University. Biophotons or or ultra-weak photon emissions of biological systems (weak electromagnetic waves in the optical range of the spectrum – in other words: light) were discovered by him in 1923. He named them mitogenetic radiation. One of the closest Gurwitsch’s students who made an important contribution to the biophotonics was Academician Gleb Frank.

He was chair of the Histology and Embryology department at Moscow University (1924-1929), head of the laboratory of Experimental Biology at the Institute of Experimental Medicine (1930-1945), and director of Institute of Experimental Biology in Leningrad (1945-1948). He retired in 1948 after Trofim Lysenko coming to power, but he continued working at home. He was wrongly accused of being the "Grand Master" of Jewish Masonic Lodge ^[1].

[edit] Bibliography

Biophotonics (L.V.Beloussov and F.-A. Popp eds) BioInform Services, Moscow, 1995.
Biophotonics and Coherent Systems (L.V.Beloussov, F.-A. Popp, V.L. Voeikov and R. van Wijk eds) Moscow University Press, Moscow 2000.