History of ICBFM

Novosibirsk Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences was established in April 1st, 1984, based on the Department of Biochemistry of the Novosibirsk Institute of Organic Chemistry of SB RAS (NIOC),which was under the leadership of Academician Dmitryi Knorre. The Institute was renamed according to the Presidium Resolution of RAS as Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine of SB RAS in 2003. The Staff of Institute was formed from researchers working in the field of chemistry and biochemistry of nucleic acids and enzymes, nucleic acid metabolism.

In the 60's the principle of directed chemical modification of nucleic acids with reactive derivatives of oligonucleotides was formulated. Work in this area began to develop intensively in our Institute. A detailed studies of intramolecular processes in the duplexes formed by nucleic acids and oligonucleotide derivatives were conducted. The target effects of various reagents were tested on cells and living organisms. A new trend for study of functional tophography of ribosomes with reactive derivatives of nucleotides and tRNA emerged, and more recently the first steps towards studying the chromatin structure were made.

In the 80s studying the structure of nucleic acids began: genomic RNA-borne encephalitis virus, and then a number of eukaryotic genes was sequenced. Currently, work is underway to study the human genome.

Enzymes of nucleic acids metabolism are intensively studied at the Institute. This work began with the study of enzymatic aminoacylation of tRNA, and then began to develop the study of RNA polymerase from Escherichia coli and further DNA polymerase, reverse transcriptase of HIV-1 and repair enzymes. Many of these studies (ribosomes, DNA polymerase alfa, most of the repair enzymes) are conducted on the material from the human body (the placenta cells, HeLa).