Vadim J. Birstein

Vadim Yakovlevich Birshteyn (Russian: Вадим Яковлевич Бирштейнcode: rus promoted to code: ru , 1944–2023), better known in English-language sources as Vadim Jacobovich Birstein, was a Russian-American ichthyologist, molecular geneticist, historian, and human rights activist.^[1]

Biography

Birstein was born in Moscow in 1944. His father was Yakov A. Birshteyn (1911–1970), a noted evolutionary biologist and one of the signatories of the Letter of Three Hundred against Lysenkoism.^[1] In the 1970s Birstein was a member of Amnesty International and from 1989 supported Memorial International with historical research on Soviet crimes against humanity.

Birstein was considered one of the world's leading experts on sturgeon.^[1] He was a member of the World Sturgeon Conservation Society and the IUCN Shark Specialist Group (SSG).^[2] Until 1998, Birstein was on the research staff of the Koltsov Institute of Developmental Biology.

Birstein immigrated to the United States in 1991. In the 1990s, he served as a Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts.^[3] Birstein collaborated with Rob DeSalle of the American Museum of Natural History to develop a technique for the DNA analysis of sturgeon roe.^[1]

In 2001, Birstein authored the first book in the English language on the topic of the sadistic human experiments of Grigory Mairanovsky and the poison laboratory of the NKVD.^[4] In 2011, he authored an 800-page book on the activities of SMERSH during the Second World War.^[5] In 2014, Birstein was interviewed by the Polish historian Piotr Zychowicz. In 2018, Birstein's writings were reviewed by the United Nations Committee Against Torture.

After the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Birstein was reportedly strongly supportive of Ukraine.^[1] He died suddenly on June 12, 2023 at the age of 78.

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