Ivan L'vovich Serbinov was born in St Petersburg in 1872. He studied in the Department of Natural Sciences of St Petersburg University, graduating in 1897. In his first year as a student, he began work in the Laboratory of Spore-Producing Plants, under the direction of Prof. Gobi, and made a report on archimycete fungi of St Petersburg oblast. In 1898 he published his first scientific work, "On deposits of reserve carbon in asci of the fungus Peziza macropus". From 1902 to 1906, he worked as a botanist in Nikita Botanic Garden, Crimea, Ukraine. There he wrote a work on algae and aquatic fungi. He gave lectures about diseases of vine at the Higher School of Viticulture & Wine-making as well as at the School of Gardening. Later, from 1906 to 1915, he lectured on plant pathology for the Chair of Botany of St Petersburg University. He also worked as a plant pathologist on bacterial diseases at the Main Botanic Garden of St Petersburg. In 1916, he moved to Odesa in Ukraine, where he headed the Department of Plant Pathology of the Wine-Making Station at Sukhoi Liman. In 1918, after foundation of the Odesa Agricultural Institute, he was elected Professor of General Microbiology & Plant Pathology. He developed techniques for studying bacterial diseases of plants. For the first time in Europe, he determined the permanent symbiosis of the fungus Plasmopara viticola and the microbe Micrococcus acidovorum on vine leaves infected by mildew.

Serbinov was the author of two textbooks "General Microbiology" (1916) and "Agricultural Microbiology" (1922). Potebnia renamed the species Bac. beticola Serb. as Bac. serbinovi Poteb. in his honour. He died in Odesa in 1925.

Lists. Taxa. Kirk & Ansell form of name: Serbinow.