The history of emergence and development of medical genetics in Russia

The early years of human genetics in Russia were distinguished by a pronounced interest in eugenics, pioneering methodological achievements in human cytogenetics, systematic studies of the contribution of heredity to the development of multifactorial diseases, the physical and mental human characteristics. The vast scientific infrastructure in genetics that had developed by the mid-1930s was demolished in a series of political decisions beginning with the campaigns to eradicate eugenic ideas and ending with the notorious 1948 VASKhNIL session, which entailed a complete ban on the genetics. For almost 25 years, key to the development of this science throughout the world, its progress in Russia was first completely frozen, and then retarded profoundly. The revival of medical genetics went in different ways, by virtue of many prominent specialists in various fields of human genetics, formed before the era of repression. New scientific schools were founded by them and their disciples. Despite the enormous gap in the level of domestic and world genetics, which lagged even after the ban was lifted, a series of important works in the field of radiation mutagenesis, population genetics, cytogenetics, as well as a number of world class achievements in the field of biochemical genetics and the study of metabolic diseases, should be noted. Gradually, as the state recognized the importance of genetics for medicine, an extensive medical genetic service arose in the country’s healthcare system. The conditional point of the final “rehabilitation” of medical genetics can be recognized in the emergence of departments of this discipline in medical schools throughout the country in the late 1980s. Despite the gap, still persisting between the world’s level of medical genetic science and the current state of it in our country, this gap has significantly reduced nowadays.