Professor Iraida Pestova, a distinguished russian morphologist: on the 110th anniversary of her birth

This article commemorates the 110th anniversary of the birth of Professor Iraida M. Pestova, Doctor of Sciences in Biology, a prominent Soviet-era histologist. Pestova graduated from the Sverdlovsk State Medical Institute (now Ural State Medical University) as part of its legendary first cohort. After completing her studies in 1936, she entered the postgraduate program in the Department of Normal Anatomy, where she worked for a year under Professor Alexei P. Lavrentiev, the founder and first head of the department. In 1937, Pestova moved to Perm and continued her postgraduate studies in the Department of Histology of the Perm State Medical Institute under Professor Petr Ya. Lakhovsky. From this point began her remarkable career as a histologist, marked by significant scientific achievements and long-standing leadership of the Department of Histology at the Perm State Medical Institute. At the time, the department’s primary research focus was the evolution of the immune and hematopoietic systems of vertebrates. As a scholar, Pestova followed in the tradition of Alexei A. Zavarzin, an eminent Soviet histologist, academician of both the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, and founder of evolutionary histology. It was in Perm that Zavarzin established the scientific foundations of evolutionary histology, which were further developed by Evgenii S. Danini, Pestova’s mentor. The article highlights the key stages of Professor Pestova’s life and career, her contribution to science and teaching, as well as her professional and personal qualities.