Trofim Lysenko: Trofim Lysenko. Soviet agrobiologist Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, was mainly known for his work on temperature variation on the life-cycle of plants before he rejected Mendelian genetics for his own theories. He became director of the USSR Institute of Genetics as a result of support from Joseph Stalin, who hoped he could eradicate famine. He did not believe in DNA or genes, and after WWII, combined his own theories with those...