Boris Balinsky

Borys Ivanovych Balinsky (23 September 1905 – 1 September 1997) was a Ukrainian- South African biologist, embryologist, entomologist.

A professor at Kyiv University and later the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Balinsky was a pioneer researcher in the field of experimental embryology, electron microscopy and developmental biology and the author of a popular textbook in embryology An Introduction to Embryology.

Balinsky was born 23 September 1905, in Kyiv, then part of the Russian Empire (now the capital of present day, Ukraine).

He was a student of the Soviet zoologist and evolutionary biologist, Ivan Schmalhausen, and one of the first people to conduct experiments inducing organogenesis in amphibian embryos.

Balinsky became a full university professor at Kiev University in 1933 at age 28 and the deputy director of the Institute of Biology two years later in 1935.

He became a recognised expert in fish and amphibian development.

A victim of Soviet repressions, Balinsky remained in Kiev under German occupation during World War II while others evacuated.

He and his family fled to Poznań, Poland after the German evacuation and later Munich, Germany.

Balinsky also briefly worked in Scotland in Conrad Hal Waddington's laboratory on mice embryology.

Later, in 1949, he migrated to South Africa where he become one of the founders of South African experimental bioscience.

Balinsky also worked in entomology and described new species of Plecoptera, Odonata and moths from the family Pyralidae, mainly from Caucasus and South Africa.

He died at home in Johannesburg on 1 September 1997, aged 91.

His son John Balinsky was also a scientist.