Nikolay Makarovich Pidoplichko, a prominent mycologist of the mid 20th century, was born in Kozatskoye village (Cherkasy oblast, Ukraine) on 4 April 1904 in the family of a teacher. He finished agricultural technical school and entered Kiev State University. While a student of the university, he also worked in Kiev Botanic Garden and at the M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. At that time he published the first scientific work On the Flora of Zvenigorod [written in Ukrainian] and some articles devoted to flowering plants of Ukraine. His herbarium on which those articles were based resides in Kiev, in the M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany.
At that period, along with collecting botanical specimens, he began to study fungi at the Institute of Sugar Beet and the Institute of Makhorka [low grade tobacco]. His attention was attracted by agents of a grey rot of sugar beet and tobacco occurring during growth and storage. From the very beginning of his scientific activity, Pidoplichko showed an ability to develop and apply practical techniques in experimental mycology. From 1931 he worked at the Institute of Microbiology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, where he set up the Department of Mycology. Pidoplichko headed this Department until the end of his life. During the first years of work at the Institute of Microbiology, he continued to study fungal pathogens of flowering plants, publishing the monograph Guide to the Identification of Fungal Pests of Cultivated Plants. This work played an exceptionally important role in training a generation of mycologists and plant pathologists in Ukraine. In 1942 the monograph was defended as a candidate degree thesis.
In 1938, N.M. Pidoplichko, P.D. Yatel and other leading staff of the Institute investigated the cause of a sudden, widespread disease previously unknown in Ukraine of horses. The causal organism turned out to be a species of the hyphomycete genus Stachybotrys producing a toxin (stachybotryotoxicosis). For these investigations, Pidoplichko was awarded the Order Mark of Honour (1939). At the same time, in southern Ukraine, another new mass disease of horses was spreading. This was known initially as the "Zaporizhzhia horse disease". Pidoplichko demonstrated that the causal agent was a fungus, Dendrodochium toxicum, spreading through coarse fodder. In experiments on laboratory animals and horses the rôle of this fungus in the disease was established, and means for combating it were developed. As a result this dangerous disease (which by now had the formal name of "dendrodochiotoxicosis" in veterinary circles) was rapidly controlled. This incident was sufficiently serious as to merit mention by Krushchev in his memoirs.
During the Great Patriotic War [Second World War] Pidoplichko was moved eastwards away from the combat zone, and continued his work on pathogenic fungi. In 1942-1943 he studied toxic fungi on grains of cereals in Bashkiria, Russia. This was connected with food products derived from mouldy grain, and resulted in a serious and even fatal disease (septic tonsillitis). Pidoplichko was able to show that the causes of this disease were fungi of the genus Fusarium, particularly section Sporotrichiella. The disease was replicated by experimental inoculations using extracts of pure cultures of the fungi. Pidoplichko's closest colleague, V.Y. Bilay, took an active part in these experiments. For his scientific-managerial work and practical involvement in control of this disease, Pidoplichko was awarded the Diploma of the Supreme Soviet of the Bashkirian ASSR. His investigations of toxic fungi and their role in diseases of humans and domestic animals laid the foundations of a new branch of mycology: mycotoxicology.
From 1946, Pidoplichko started to look actively at antibiotic activity of the microfungi in the departmental culture collection. The result was a new medicinal antibiotic "microcid" derived from a new species Penicillium vitale, isolated and described by Pidoplichko. In 1950, this preparation was introduced into medical practice and is still in use for treatment of different human inflammations. In 1952 for participation in this research, he was awarded the National Prize of the USSR. This work was later continued with colleagues from the Institute of Microbiology and the Institute of Biochemistry. Methods of cultivation of P. vitale were improved, making it possible to obtain virtually pure material of the ferments gluco-oxidase and catalase (the first of these is the active component of the antibiotic "microcid"). This research received the National Prize of Ukraine in 1963.
Pidoplichko continued to investigate fungi growing on coarse fodder over a long period. The result of this work were summarized in his monograph Fungi of Coarse Fodder, in which about 700 fungi were recorded, including 35 species new for science. The monograph represented a first attempt to evaluate the significance of harmless and pathological fungal populations on plant substrata. For this work Pidoplichko was awarded the degree of Doctor of Biological Sciences (1954). In 1957 he was elected corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
His research interests always included the ecology and systematics of soil fungi in Ukraine. Over many years fungi of the rhizosphere of principal field crops, fungi of uncultivated soils, relationships between fungi and flowering plants, and ecological characteristics of fungi were studied under his direction at what was by then called the Department of Experimental Mycology. Pidoplichko gained a justified reputation as a brilliant, erudite scientist, and a taxonomist of fungi maintained in pure culture. His books and identification keys are still in widespread use. It was a pity that time, illness and the circumstances of his life did not allow him to summarize this long-term work.
N.M. Pidoplichko was the founder of experimental mycology in Ukraine, publishing 115 scientific works. Under his guidance and on his initiative complex scientific investigations on major economic questions were carried out. These included mycotoxicoses, potato canker, antibiotics development, and the systematics and ecology of soil microscopic fungi. He also had great managerial abilities within science. He headed the Ukrainian Branch of the Microbiological Society of the USSR, and was head of the Mycological Section of the Ukrainian Botanical Society. He was reviewer and editor of numerous works on mycology in the USSR. In summary, he was a prominent scientist, and a well-bred and openhearted person.
Lists. Publications. Taxa. Kirk & Ansell form of name: Pidopl.
