The administration of FSBI RCMG sorrowfully informs about the tragic death of Oleg Pavlovich Balanovsky, chief researcher of the Population Genetics Laboratory at FSBI RCMG, Doctor of Biological Science, and Professor of RAS
The administration of FSBI RCMG sorrowfully informs about the tragic death of Oleg Pavlovich Balanovsky, chief researcher of the Population Genetics Laboratory at FSBI RCMG, Doctor of Biological Science, and Professor of RAS.
The team of the Centre mourns for the untimely passing of Oleg Pavlovich.
The memory of the talented scientist and wonderful man will forever remain in our hearts.
Oleg Pavlovich Balanovsky
03.07.1977 – 05.07.2021
Oleg Pavlovich Balanovsky - Doctor of Biology, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the Genomic Geography Laboratory at the N.I. Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Chief Researcher at the Human Population Genetics Laboratory at the N.P. Bochkov Research Centre for Medical Genetics, well-known scientist in genomic geography and population genetics.
O.P. Balanovsky graduated from the Biology Department of Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2000. Then he was a postgraduate student at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2002, he defended his candidate thesis and in 2012, his doctoral thesis.
From 2002 to 2011, he worked at the Academician N.P. Bochkov Research Centre for Medical Genetics and rose from researcher to a lead researcher. After O.P. Balanovsky became the head of the laboratory in IOGene institute, he continued to work at RCGM as a part-time leading and then chief researcher. He has published 2 monographs ("The Russian Gene Pool on the Russian Plain" in 2007 and "The Gene Pool of Europe" in 2015) and over 80 articles in Russian and foreign journals, including such leading world journals as Nature, Science, American Journal of Human Genetics, etc. O.P. Balanovsky taught at Moscow State University and MPTI.
O.P. Balanovsky studied the Russian gene pool, the gene pool of peoples of the North Caucasus, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He studied the history of migrations and formation of peoples, was engaged in identifying global patterns of the world gene pool, and created cartographic atlases. He formed a new trend in human population genetics based on full Y-chromosome sequencing. He was the co-director of the Northern Eurasia Research Centre in the largest international project on study of genetic diversity of the humanity - The Genographic project (2005-2011). He was also involved in genogeographic research for forensics.
In addition to his productive scientific activities, Balanovsky is known for his brilliant popular science lectures and educational work. He was one of the authors of the project "Genofond.rf".
The team of the Academician N.P. Bochkov Research Centre for Medical Genetics deeply mourns this uncalculable loss and expresses sincere condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.