Preface
The Institute’s official foundation date is April 22, 1967. However the year of its birth can be called 1957 when the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences came to house an Institute of experimental biology and medicine (director — Prof. Yevgeniiy Meshalkin, RAMS member, M. D.
The USSR Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch Institute of experimental biology and medicine was one of the first Siberian Branch institutes. It consisted of two departments — clinical department and the department of experimental biology.
The head of that experimental biology department was Prof Irina Yesipova, M.D. — a morphologist, pupil of a famous pathophysiologist Ippolit Davydovskiy.
Human was the focus of the newly established institute’s research. The two departments were to form a tandem for comprehensive analysis of the human body vital functions.
Joining the Institute of Cytology and Genetics
1963 saw the Institute of experimental biology and medicine join the Public Health Ministry research network and the eight laboratories of the experimental biology department become a subdivision of the USSR Cytology and Genetics Institute.
In 1967 the Department for human and animal ecological physiology analysis was reformed into the Institute of physiology, a part of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The institute took on new research prospects in the ecological physiology.
At the very beginning research activity was mainly maintained by only three departments: Human Adaptation Physiology dept.; dept. of the Central Regulation Mechanisms Analysis and Visceral Systems Study dept.
The then institute’s focus rested mostly on the study of human and animal physiological and ontogenetic adaptation mechanisms to the environment — low and high temperatures, oxygen starvation and physical load — and the biorhythms.
Since then the institute has conducted many comprehensive morphophysiological experiments, created pilot models of adaptation and organized a number of scientific expeditions.
The testing methods complied with the highest standards of that time: besides histochemical tissue analysis the institute mastered ultramicroscopy, put gas exchange and heat chambers, tissue respiration and electromyography probes in operation.
The USSR Institute of Physiology
In 1973 the institute was attached to the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences with the view of maximizing the intensity of research on human adaptation mechanisms.
That transfer gave birth to five new departments: Ecological Physiology dept., dept. of the Central Regulation Mechanisms Analysis and Visceral Systems Study dept., Functional Morphology dept., dept. for Medico-social and Physiological Problems of the Western Siberia’s North assimilation. They contained in total 18 laboratories.
That time saw the Institute of Physiology climb on top of the country’s research centers for the problems of the psychophysical adaptation mechanisms of shift workers.
A substantial part of all experiments was conducted by scientific expeditions targeted at remote regions of Siberia, Far East and North and even Antarctica.
Institute Management Chronicle
M. Sobakin — RAMS corresponding member — 1973–1977;
V. Matyukhin — RAMS academician — 1977–1988;
V. Vinogradov — RAMS corresponding member — 1988–1990;
L. Aftanas — Candidate of Medical Sciences — 1990–1992;
V. Trufakin — RAMS academician — 1992 – up till now.
Our Achievements in Terms of Figures
Our scientific workers have obtained more than 30 certificates of authorship and patents, their research results have been published in about 40 collected scientific articles and 90 studies. The Institute of Physiology have proudly brought up 2 academicians and 4 corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences (RAMS), 215 candidates and 50 M.D.’s.
The Institute’s scientific leadership is largely recognized in Russia and abroad. It’s widely known thank to its innumerable publications, participation at many home and oversea conferences and rich lecturing experience.
The Institute itself has hosted more than 30 all–Russian conferences, meetings, symposiums and 5 Conventions of Physiologists from Siberia and Russia’s Far East.
Today’s Institute of Physiology
2009 has challenged the Institute with twelve major scientific researches, five projects for the Russian Basic Research Fund’s grant and five — for the Russian Humanities Fund’s grant.
Being a versatile scientific facility the Institute of Physiology digs into almost every sphere of the human and animal life activity: from the cerebral biopotential, psychology and behavioral theories to the immune system, thermoregulation, external respiration, blood circulation, cellular biorhythms, cellular ferments and pharmacological intervention in animal organisms.
The Institute embraces 14 scientific laboratories, a branch establishment in Barnaul, a psychosomatic clinic — over 200 people in all.
100 scientific associates including 24 ScD’s (3 RAMS members and 10 professors among them) and 37 Cand.Sc’s are presently employed.
The Institute of Physiology views their foremost challenge — study on human and animal bodily machinery for activity, development and tolerance — as three codirectional research areas:
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Study on the body functional state dynamics under the influence of sub-extreme and extreme factors in health and none;
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Study on psychophysiological and neurochemical models of individual organization for integrative brain functions (attention, memory, emotions and creative activity) and neurovegetative (neuroimmune, neuroendocrinal) activity in health and psychosomatic and affective disorders;
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Study on cellular and molecular-level physiological regulation mechanisms in health and none.
