Igor Tamm, Biological Physicist

“How Physicists Became Biologists”
by Istvan Hargittai.

One goal of Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology is to illustrate the close relationship between biology and physics. In particular, in this blog I like to highlight examples of physicists who have contributed to biology. So, I was delighted to discover the paper “How Physicists Became Biologists” by Istvan Hargittai (Structural Chemistry, Volume 36, Pages 1–12, 2025). 

Today, I want to feature just one of the several stories told by Hargittai. This tale centers on Igor Tamm, a Russian physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in 1958 “for the discovery and the interpretation of the Cherenkov effect” (electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle passes through a material at a speed greater than the speed of light in that material). He didn’t switch his research to biology, but he did provide support for biologists suffering during the time of Lysenko. Hargittai writes

Above I have already alluded to Igor E. Tamm’s defiance under the charlatan Trofim D. Lysenko’s dominance of biology, including genetics, in the Soviet Union... Blind dictatorial power existed under Stalin. Although the next Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev unmasked some of Stalin’s crimes and brought about a degree of relaxation, Lysenko managed to enamor him to his unscientific views and did not lose his grip on Soviet biology and agriculture until after Khrushchev had lost his power.

Igor E. Tamm... was deeply concerned about the situation of biology in the Soviet Union. He was a great physicist and humanist—not an easy demeanor to represent in the Soviet Union under Stalin and Stalin’s successors. Tamm was aware of the growing gap between the progress in the West and the situation in the Soviet Union. He realized that it would be impossible for the Soviet biologists to change the trend, but the nuclear physicists might be able to do that. Tamm convinced Igor V. Kurchatov, the leader of Soviet nuclear research—atom tsar was his popular label—about the necessity of acting. They did not challenge Lysenko directly; instead, they were taking measures that could be done within their jurisdiction. In the late 1950s, they organized a special seminar, chaired by Tamm, for a closed group of people. First, the seminars were held in private rooms of members of the Science Academy; it was essentially a clandestine movement. As they were gaining strength, in 1958 they organized a section of radiobiology in Kurchatov’s Institute of Atomic Energy. Tamm gave talks on recent achievements in biology, based on his readings. In 1957, in one of his lectures on the molecular mechanism of heredity, he discussed the genetic code, which at that time was not yet solved... 

To Tamm sectarian zealotry, pseudoscience, and unprincipled complicity were the most dangerous enemies of science. He started his struggles against them well before his Nobel Prize would represent a limited shield in his protection. Fortunately, he was not alone in recognizing the danger of Lysenko’s unscientific domination of biology under the protective umbrella first by Stalin, then by Khrushchev. Andrei D. Sakharov, well before his becoming a fighter for human rights, had become interested in the biological consequences of nuclear testing and was appalled by the conditions of the relevant biological research in the Soviet Union. Other leading physicists joined in and, if not at once, eventually, the President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, the noted organic chemist Aleksandr N. Nesmeyanov waged his own battle in salvaging Soviet biology.

Why did I choose this story from the many examples of physicists in biology presented by Hargittai? I had three reasons: 1) It’s a wonderful example of the interaction of biologists with physicists, 2) It’s a fascinating piece of history, and 3) It has relevance today, in our era of antiscience. My favorite line from Hargittai’s paper is “sectarian zealotry, pseudoscience, and unprincipled complicity were the most dangerous enemies of science.” I believe this as true in America today in as it was in the Soviet Union of the 1950s. We physicists need to stand by virologists, immunologists, and climatologists in the current war on science.