Waldemar Haffkine — sci (cholera vaccine) with roots in the Russian Empire
Waldemar Haffkine was a Ukrainian-born bacteriologist born in Odessa who developed the world's first effective cholera vaccine (1892) and the first plague vaccine (1897) — conducting trials on himself before mass vaccination campaigns that saved millions of lives in India. He spent most of his career in Calcutta.
Tracing the roots — Odessa
Born in Odessa (Russian Empire) in 1860 to a Jewish family, Haffkine studied under Élie Metchnikoff at the Odessa bacteriological station before his persecution as a Jew drove him to Paris and then India. His vaccines — developed in Calcutta and Bombay — prevented tens of millions of deaths from cholera and plague. His laboratory is now named the Haffkine Institute.
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Odessa. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.