Grigory Mairanovsky was a Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 biochemist

Biochemist

Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. Typical biochemists study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. The prefix of "bio" in "biochemist" can be understood as a fusion of "biological chemist."-Role:...

 and poison

Poison

In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....

 developer.

He was head of secret laboratories in the Bach Institute of Biochemistry in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 (1928–1935). As the head of Laboratory No. 1

Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services

Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services, alternatively known as Laboratory 1, Laboratory 12, and Kamera which means "The Chamber" in Russian, was a covert research and development facility of the Soviet secret police agencies,which notably also developed antidotes and internal...

 of the NKVD

NKVD

The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....

 (1938–1946), he initiated the secret "scientific" poison program conducted by the Soviet secret police services. He used political prisoner

Political prisoner

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....

s for experiments with poisons. His classified PhD thesis defended in 1940 was entitled "Biological activity of the products of interaction of mustard gas with [human] skin tissues".

Mairanovsky participated personally in political assassination

Assassination

To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

s as a member of the Pavel Sudoplatov

Pavel Sudoplatov

Lieutenant General Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union who rose to the rank of lieutenant general...

 team in the 1940s. These assassinations include that of American spy for the Soviets, Isaiah Oggins

Isaiah Oggins

Isaiah Oggins was an American communist and spy in the Soviet underground who worked in Europe with his wife and in the Far East before being arrested, sentenced, and eventually executed under the orders of Joseph Stalin.-Early life:The third of four children, Oggins was born 1898 in Willimantic,...

.

He was arrested in 1951, in connection with the arrest of Viktor Abakumov

Viktor Abakumov

Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov , was a high level Soviet security organs official, from 1943 to 1946 the head of SMERSH in the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense, and from 1946 to 1951 Minister of State Security or MGB . Abakumov was a notoriously brutal official who was known to torture prisoners...

, and spent 10 years in prison. After his release, he headed a biochemical laboratory.