Vasily Omeliansky

Vasily Leonidovich Omelianski (Vasilij Leonidovič Omeljanskij, Russian: Василий Леонидович Омелянский; 10 March 1867 – 21 April 1928) was a Russian microbiologist and author of the first original Russian text book on microbiology. He was the only student of Sergei Winogradsky and succeeded him as head of the department of General Microbiology at the Institute of Experimental Medicine in Saint Petersburg.

Early life and education Omelianski was the youngest son of a college teacher in Zhytomyr. In 1885 or 1886, Omelianski enrolled in the natural history division of the physico-mathematical faculty of the University of Saint Petersburg. During his studies he visited the lectures of D. I. Mendeleev and N. A. Menshutkin. (founded by M. Beijerinck) in Russia. However, today his international reputation is connected to microbial methanogenesis in syntrophic co-cultures. This is based on his French publication of 1916 on "methane fermentation of ethanol". Following this research, microbiologist Horace Barker isolated an ethanol-degrading microbe called Methanobacterium omelianskii. Barker had used the methodological approach of the "Delft school of microbiology" Certainly, Omelianski was one of the founding fathers of methanogenesis research and the first scientist investigating methanogenic fermentation of cellulose and ethanol systematically. He even discovered hydrogen as a product of cellulose fermentation around 1900 but, of course, did not discover the concept of syntrophic electron transfer.