He was the only student of Sergei Winogradsky and succeeded him as head of the department of General Microbiology at the Institute of Experimental Medicine in Saint Petersburg.

In 1891, financial difficulties forced Omelianski to work as laboratory chemist in a metallurgical factory in Southern Russia.

[1] However, two years later he became the assistant of S. N. Winogradsky, who hired him on recommendation of Menshutkin, at the new-founded Imperial Institute of Experimental Medicine.

[2] Since 1912 till his death he led the department of General Microbiology at the Institute of Experimental Medicine succeeding Winogradsky.

The last textbook he could finish in 1927 was “Short course in general and soil microbiology” (Краткий курс общей и почвенной микробиологии).

In 1967, the renamed Methanobacterium omelianskii was specified as a co-culture of the ethanol-oxidizing S-organism and a methanogen, which uses hydrogen produced by its bacterial partner to reduce carbon dioxide to methane.

[8] Certainly, Omelianski was one of the founding fathers of methanogenesis research and the first scientist investigating methanogenic fermentation of cellulose and ethanol systematically.