Zinaida Yermolyeva

Zinaida Yermolyeva (1898-1974) was a Soviet microbiologist who led the development of the Soviet Union's first domestically produced penicillin, derived from a locally isolated Penicillium mold strain and put into production in 1942 during the Second World War, work carried out independently of and roughly contemporaneously with the Western development of penicillin by Howard Florey's Oxford team. Her wartime antibiotic, given the name crustosin, was credited with treating large numbers of wounded Soviet soldiers, and reports at the time claimed it as more potent than the Western strain, though later analysis found the two penicillins broadly comparable in effectiveness. Earlier in her career she conducted research on cholera, at one point deliberately testing a cholera related bacterium on herself to study its properties, and her work substantially advanced Soviet understanding of bacterial toxins and antimicrobial treatment. She later directed Soviet research institutes devoted to antibiotics and led efforts to scale up domestic penicillin and streptomycin production.