Rustem Igor Gamow was born to George Gamow, the celebrated cosmologist and physicist, and ballet dancer Rho Gamow. He held such jobs as breaking horses, delivering packages by motorcycle, and teaching karate before enrolling at the University of Colorado in 1958, where his father taught physics, microbiology and microphysics.
Gamow holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Surgery in biology, and a Doctor of Philosophy in biophysics, all at University of Colorado. He also studied the infrared-detectors of the Boa constrictor.
His best known inventions include the Gamow bag and the Shallow Underwater Breathing Apparatus. Finishing high school at age 17, he joined the National Ballet Company. Gamow worked on Phycomyces blakesleeanus during a postdoc under Max Delbrück at Caltech.
At University of Colorado-Boulder, he did Phycomyces research for over twenty years, mainly on the avoidance and anemotropic responses, helical growth, and cell-wall mechanical properties.
An avid outdoorsman, Gamow developed many inventions for safety in outdoor activities. His first important one, patented in 1990, was the Gamow bag enabling mountain climbers to avoid altitude sickness by raising the surrounding pressure.
Sir Edmund Hillary, the first expedition leader to summit Mount Everest, wrote him in congratulation. Another was the Shallow Underwater Breathing Apparatus ("SUBA"), a pressurized snorkel system permitting swimmers to breathe easily as deep as ten feet under water.
Igor Gamow continues to work in bionics, on an orthopedic knee brace that stores energy within a spring from the hamstring and redirects it to the quadriceps.
Patents
United States. Patent 4,974,829—Hyperbaric chamber
United States. Patent 5,109,837—Hyperbaric chamber
United States. Patent 5,193,530—Underwater breathing apparatus
United States. Patent 5,360,001—Hyperbaric chamber closure means
United States. Patent 5,367,790—Shoe and foot prosthesis with a coupled spring system
United States. Patent 5,398,678—Hyperbaric chamber and exercise environment
United States. Patent 5,467,764—Hypobaric sleeping chamber
United States. Patent 5,580,094—In-line skate walking guard
United States. Patent 5,701,686—Shoe and foot prosthesis with bending beam spring structures
United States. Patent 5,947,116—Underwater breathing apparatus with pressurized snorkel
United States. Patent 6,029,374—Shoe and foot prosthesis with bending beam spring structures
In 2002, a former assistant of Gamow’s filed a lawsuit against the university alleging sexual harassment and sexual assault from seven women. After the lawsuit was filed, the university began to take steps to fire Gamow. In 2004 the University of Colorado Board of Regents unanimously upheld the recommendation to fire Gamow for "moral turpitude." Professor Gamow also filed a lawsuit against University of Colorado in an attempt to be reinstated.
In May 2006, University of Colorado lost the lawsuit that had been filed by Gamow"s former assistant and was ordered to pay her $285,000 plus attorney"s fees.
In September 2011, Igor Gamow released an open letter addressing some misconceptions about events leading to his termination from the University of Colorado.
