Born and raised in St. Petersburg, Igor Polianski studied Biology and History of Science and Arts at the State University of St. Petersburg, Free University of Berlin and Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena. He received his doctorate summa cum laude in 2003 at the University of Jena. His study of the relationship of science and aesthetics in Goethe's time was published 2004. 2004-2008 he was research fellow at the Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam, Germany and taught at the Free University of Berlin. Since 2009, he has been working at the Institute of the History, Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine at the University of Ulm (2009-2014, deputy Director, 2015, acting Director). In 2014, he received his lecturing qualification (Habilitation) in the field of history, philosophy and ethics of medicine. Since July 2018, he has been leading the DFG-funded project "Hygiene propaganda and theatrical biopolitics in the Soviet Union in the 1920s-40s. The Moscow Theatre of the Sanitary Culture as a factory of a new man".