Obituaries : Yuri Ovchinnikov, 53; Soviet Biologist
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MOSCOW — Yuri Ovchinnikov, a leading Soviet biologist and vice president of the country’s prestigious Academy of Sciences, has died at the age of 53, it was reported Friday.
Ovchinnikov died Wednesday after an unspecified “grave and long illness,” the official news agency Tass said.
He led research into the creation of gene-engineering interferons, insulin and other medical preparations, and he was chairman of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies, Tass said.
In addition to his position in the Academy of Sciences, Ovchinnikov was an alternate member of the Communist Party’s Central Committee and a member of the Presidium of the Russian Republic’s Supreme Soviet, or parliament.
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