Alexey Olovnikov

Alexey Matveyevich Olovnikov (Russian: Алексей Матвеевич Оловников; 10 October 1936 in Vladivostok, Soviet Union – 6 December 2022 in Moscow, Russia) was a Russian biologist. In 1971, he was the first to recognize the problem of telomere shortening, to predict the existence of telomerase, and to suggest the telomere hypothesis of aging and the relationship of telomeres to cancer.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

Despite this discovery, he was not awarded a share of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded for the discovery of the enzyme and its biological significance.^[7] In 2009 he was awarded Demidov Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences.^[8]

References

1. Olovnikov, A.M. (1971). "Принцип маргинотомии в матричном синтезе полинуклеотидов" [Principle of marginotomy in template synthesis of polynucleotides]. Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR (in Russian). 201 (6): 1496–9. PMID 5158754.
2. Olovnikov, A.M. (1973-09-14). "A theory of marginotomy: The incomplete copying of template margin in enzymic synthesis of polynucleotides and biological significance of the phenomenon". Journal of Theoretical Biology. 41 (1): 181–190. Bibcode:1973JThBi..41..181O. doi:10.1016/0022-5193(73)90198-7. PMID 4754905.
3. "Alexey Matveevich Olovnikov". Hindawi Publishing Corporation. Archived from the original on 2012-07-08. Retrieved 2009-10-06.
4. Borisov, Alexander (5 October 2009). [The discovery lost its Russian trace] (in Russian). Gazeta.ru. Archived from the original on October 7, 2009. Retrieved 2009-10-06.
5. Скулачев: Нобелевский комитет "забыл" дать премию российскому биологу [Skulachev: The Nobel Committee "forgot" to give the prize to the Russian biology] (in Russian). RIA Novosti. 5 October 2009. from the original on 8 October 2009. Retrieved 2009-10-06.
6. Calder, Nigel (2003). Magic universe: the Oxford guide to modern science. Oxford University Press. pp. 424. ISBN 978-0-19-850792-5. Olovnikov.
7. Danielsson, Ola (2009). "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009 is awarded to Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak for the discovery of "how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase"" (PDF). Nobel Prize.
8. Yegorov, Yegor E.; Zelenin, A.V. (13 February 2011). "Racing for cell immortality, telomeres, telomerase, and the measure of health". Russian Journal of Developmental Biology. 42 (1): 53–56. doi:10.1134/S1062360411010061. PMID 21442903. S2CID 30043400.