Jura Musaev

Jura (Joʻra) Azimboyevich Musayev was born on 5 December 1928 in Yangiyol (then a village in the Uzbek SSR, now a city in the Tashkent region). In 1943 he entered the biology faculty of Central Asian State University and graduated in 1948 as a botanist-biologist, then continued in postgraduate study.

At the university (from 1960 Tashkent State University, today the National University of Uzbekistan) he taught in the department of Darwinism and genetics, as assistant (1952–1956) and associate professor (1956–1974); in 1961–1966 he also ran the preparatory department of the faculty of social sciences. His candidate dissertation dealt with wide hybridisation in breeding fine-fibre cotton varieties (the summary was printed in 1954); in the early 1970s he defended a doctoral dissertation on cotton genetics based on G. hirsutum. He became a professor in 1975.

From 1974 Musayev headed the problem laboratory of cotton genetics, and in 1981–1984 he chaired the department. In 1982–1984 he directed the Institute of Experimental Plant Biology of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR. He was elected an academician in 1984, served as a member of the Academy’s Presidium in 1984–1988 and as chief scientific secretary of the Presidium in 1985–1988.

His main field was cotton genetics. He built a genetic collection of cotton and laid the foundations of a genetic theory of how traits of allotetraploid cottons are inherited through the combined action of genes. With his students he assembled a collection of monosomic, translocation and cytologically marked lines, and he was one of the authors of the varieties Gulbahor, Navbahor and Armugon. Under his supervision 6 doctors and 25 candidates of science were trained.

In 1989–1992 he led the cotton genetics laboratory and was one of the organisers of the Institute of Genetics of the Academy of Sciences, where he headed the plant genetics department (1992–2000) and from 2000 served as scientific adviser. From 2000 he also chaired the department of genetics and cytoembryology at the National University of Uzbekistan. From 1997 he sat on the editorial board of the National Encyclopedia of Uzbekistan.

Musayev held the title Honoured Science Worker of the Uzbek SSR (1980) and received the Order of Friendship of Peoples (1981), the orders “El-yurt hurmati” (1998) and “For Outstanding Merit” (2003), and the State Prize of Uzbekistan, first degree (2012). He died in Tashkent on 27 October 2014.