Mikhail Tsvet | |
|---|---|
 Mikhail Tsvet | |
| Born | 14 May 1872 |
| Died | 26 June 1919(1919-06-26) (aged 47) |
| Known for | Adsorption chromatography |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Botany |
Mikhail Semyonovich Tsvet, also speltTsvett,Tswett,Tswet,Zwet, andCvet (Russian: Михаил Семёнович Цвет; 14 May 1872 – 26 June 1919) was a Russian-Italianbotanist who inventedchromatography. Hislast name is Russian for "colour" and is also the root word of "flower."
Mikhail Tsvet was born on 14 May 1872 inAsti, Italy. His mother was Italian, and his father was a Russian official. His mother died soon after his birth, and he was raised inGeneva, Switzerland. He received hisBS degree from the Department of Physics and Mathematics at theUniversity of Geneva in 1893. However, he decided to dedicate himself tobotany and received his PhD degree in 1896 for his work oncellphysiology. He moved toSaint Petersburg, Russia, in 1896 because his father was recalled from the foreign service. There, he started to work at the Biological Laboratory of theRussian Academy of Sciences. His Geneva degrees were not recognized in Russia, and he had to earn Russian degrees. In 1897, he became a teacher of botany courses for women. In 1902, he became a laboratory assistant at the Institute of Plant Physiology of theWarsaw University (now in Poland). In 1903, he became an assistant professor and also taught at other Warsaw universities. After the beginning ofWorld War I, theWarsaw University of Technology was evacuated to Moscow, Russia, and in 1916 again toGorki near Moscow. In 1917, he became a Professor of Botany and the director of thebotanical gardens at theUniversity of Tartu (thenYuryev). In February 1918, before German troops conquered theEstonian city, Tsvet along with most of the Russian academic staff of the university evacuated toVoronezh inCentral Russia. Tsvet died of a chronic inflammation of the throat on 26 June 1919 at the age of 47.
Mikhail Tsvet invented chromatography in 1900 during his research on plantpigments. He used liquid-adsorptioncolumn chromatography withcalcium carbonate asadsorbent andpetrol ether/ethanol mixtures aseluent to separatechlorophylls andcarotenoids. The method was described on 30 December 1901 at the XI Congress of Naturalists and Physicians (XI съезд естествоиспытателей и врачей) in St. Petersburg. The first printed description was in 1905, in theProceedings of the Warsaw Society of Naturalists, biology section.[1] He first used the term "chromatography" in print in 1906 in his two papers about chlorophyll in the German botanical journal,Berichte der Deutschen botanischen Gesellschaft.[2][3] In 1907, he demonstrated his chromatograph for the German Botanical Society.
For several reasons, Tsvet's work was long ignored:[4] the violent political upheaval in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, the fact that Tsvet originally published only in Russian (making his results largely inaccessible to western scientists), and an article denying Tsvet's findings.Richard Willstätter andArthur Stoll tried to repeat Tsvet's experiments, but because they used an overly aggressive adsorbent (destroying the chlorophyll), they were not able to do so.[5] They published their results, and Tsvet's chromatography method fell into obscurity. It was revived 10 years after his death thanks to AustrianbiochemistRichard Kuhn and his student, German scientistEdgar Lederer[6][7][8][9] as well as the work ofA. J. Martin andR. L. Synge.[10]
The standardbotanical author abbreviationTswett is applied to plants that he described.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
