Nadezhda Olimpievna Ziber-Shumova

Nadezhda Olimpievna Shumova later Ziber-Shumova (Russian: Надежда Олимпиевна Зибер-Шумова; 7 May [ 19 May] 1856 – 11 May 1916) was the first woman professor of biochemistry in the Russian Empire, who made a significant contribution to the formation and development of this science.

Biography She was born on 7 May 1856 in Rostov. Her father was Olimpiy Alekseevich Shumov, and her mother was Alexandra Mikhailovna Shumova. The family had 8 children, and Nadezhda was the youngest. Later, she and her family moved to St. Petersburg where she spent her childhood and adolescence. After she successfully graduated from the Mariinskaya Women's Gymnasium, she entered the Vladimir Higher Women's Courses with a university style teaching to get a medical education. There she attended lectures of famous professors, such as Dmitri Mendeleev, Alexander Butlerov, and Andrei Famintsyn.

In 1874, Nadezhda returned to Russia and married Nikolai Ziber, at that time an assistant professor of the Department of Political Economy and Statistics at St. Vladimir University in Kyiv. Also, he was one of the first advocates of Marxism in Russia. In 1875, after Nikolai Ziber retired, they moved to Switzerland, where Nadezhda continued to study medicine at the University of Bern. During her studying at the university, Ziber-Shumova already had some scientific publications. The university also had a research group led by Marceli Nencki, which Nadezhda joined in 1877.In 1880, she received her Doctor of Medicine degree that was based on a thesis titled 'Contributions to knowledge on yeasts' from the University of Bern.

The most important work on which Nadezhda and Marceli worked together was related to the structure of hemin - a blood protein. Their research was based on a series of results on the decomposition of hemin into products carried out by Nencki's group over the years. This work was one of the first on this topic.

In 1912, she became the first woman to receive all rights of a full member of the Imperial Institute of Experimental Medicine (contrary to the rule that existed in the institute, which did not provide for the assignment of such a title to women). In recognition of outstanding scientific work, Ziber-Shumova was awarded the title of professor. Thus, she became the first female professor of biochemistry and the official head of the research department.

After the outbreak of the World War I, Nadezhda focused her efforts on an organization for an infirmary for wounded soldiers.

In 1915, Nadezhda was diagnosed with a severe malignant blood disease. She died on 11 May 1916 and was buried at the Tikhvin Cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.

Scientific Legacy Her works, including those written in collaboration with Nencki, discuss the chemical composition of various pigments of animal tissues, blood pigments and their derivatives, oxidases and other enzymes, the biology of fermentation and decay, the chemical composition of bacteria, toxins and antitoxins, the pathogenicity of microorganisms, etc. Articles that had been written before 1901 were included in the posthumous collection of works of Nencki, prepared and published by Ziber-Shumova - Marceli Nencki Opera omnia (Braunschweig, 1904); other works were published in "Zeitschrift für Physiologische Chemie" and " Russian Physician ".

In addition to her scientific activity, Ziber-Shumova did a lot for the further development of science with the help of funds inherited from her uncle. In 1907, she established the Nencki Prize which was annually awarded to the best researcher-intern of the Department of Chemistry. This was the first grant in the history of Russian science designed to support young researchers. In 1909, she donated 50,000 rubles to the Polish Society of Biological Research to help them found a research institution named after Marceli Nencki. She also bequeathed to the future institute part of her personal library.

Due to her academic achievements and scientific works, she is the most notable person of that time in the history of Russian Science. One of the confirmations of the importance of her contribution to science is the lifetime publication of her biography in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary.