The very difficult geopolitical situation of recent years has once again confirmed the need for our state to focus on its internal and self-sufficient development in its development. The story of the coronavirus pandemic that swept the whole world has shown a fairly high level of domestic virology, and microbiology in general. But, undoubtedly, we are still far from the Soviet level of science development today. In this regard, it seems advisable to pay attention to the generalization of the Soviet experience in the development of biomedical sciences. We have made an attempt to analyze the development of Soviet microbiology through an analysis of the scientific and organizational activities of the domestic scientist, Academician of Medicine Zinaida Vissarionovna Ermolyeva, carried out by her at the Department of Microbiology of the Central Institute of Advanced Medical Training in the first half of the 1970s. The source base of the publication was unpublished documents of the federal archives (the Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation and the Russian State Archive of Economics), most of which are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The article examines the scientific activity of Z.V. Ermolyeva herself, as well as those research areas that were developed by teachers and research staff of the department headed by her.