Alex B. Novikoff

Alex Benjamin Novikoff ((1913-02-28)28 February 1913 – (1987-01-09)9 January 1987) was a Russian–born American biologist who is recognized for his pioneering works in the discoveries on cell organelles. A victim of American Cold War antagonism to communism that he supported, he is also recognized as a public figure of the mid-20th century at the height of McCarthyism in America. Writing in Nature, Alex Comfort concluded that he was "denied a well earned share in a Nobel Prize" for his work on cell organelles and autophagy.

Novikoff's most important achievements were in developing histochemical techniques that were used for discovering and studying structures and functions of cells. After he developed the cell fractionation method, it became possible to identify and isolate cell organelles. He was the first to describe lysosomes using electron microscopy; his collaborator Christian de Duve received the Nobel Prize for the discovery. He was also the first to understand the process of cell eating, which he called "cytolysomes," now known as autophagy, another Nobel Prize-winning discovery. He developed the method for making liver cancer cells, later called Novikoff hepatoma, which paved the way for cellular experiments in cancer studies.

After being accused of participation in the Communist Party as disloyalty to the nation, Novikoff was dismissed in 1953 from the University of Vermont College of Medicine where he was serving as a tenured professor, following his refusal to cooperate in disclosing his communist friends. He was even denied twice of his willingness to serve in the US Army during the Second World War. Due to lack of substantial evidence, the case itself was dismissed after twenty years. The incident has become popularly known as the "Novikoff Affair", and is the most notable case of McCarthyism in Vermont. In 1983, after thirty years of his banishment, the university made an apology by presenting him an honorary degree.