History

The V.N. Orekhovich Scientific Research Institute of Biomedical Chemistry (IBMC) is a Federal State Research Institution where studies in the field of biomedical chemistry as carried out using proteomics, transcriptomics, bioinformatics, nanobiotechnology, cell and systems biology.

The Institute of Biomedical Chemistry is located in a historical place of Moscow. Pogodinskaya Street is named after Michael P. Pogodin, a historian, author and collector. The street witnessed the massive fire during Napoleon’s invasion described by Lev Tolstoy in his “War and Peace”, the militia medics of 1941, and the turmoils of the Soviet Perestroika. Today it is a buzzing historical street full of buildings of different sorts: hospitals, embassies and the Russian Academy of education, all peacefully standing in one place. Right in the middle of the street you can find Pogodin’s modest hut, known in Russian as “Pogodinskaya Izba”, a small blue building with a carved attic, which was a part of the Pogodin’s manor. The hut is a protected cultural heritage site of Moscow. Many famous Russian writers visited the Pogodin’s manor. There are now two buildings of the V.N. Orekhovich Research Institute of Biomedical Chemistry, standing next to this historical site.

The Institute began its history, known as “Institute of Biological and Medical Chemistry of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR” in 1944 (under the resolution of the USSR Council of People's Commissars № 797 of 30 June 1944).

World War II was underway, with battles constantly breaking out on the Eastern Front, hence, the role of physicians was extremely high, when the Government decided to found the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR. The structure of the medical and biological department of the Academy was based on a number of departments of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine (VIEM) being transformed into separate institutes.

One of the first among them was the Institute of Biological and Medical Chemistry, which initially included the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry (headed by M.M. Shemyakin), the Laboratory of Protein Chemistry and Pathochemistry (V.N. Orekhovich), the Laboratory of Intermediate Nitrogen Metabolism (A.E. Braunstein). Prof. S.E. Severin, who by that time headed the Department of Animal Biochemistry at MSU, and V.A. Engelhardt, Professor at MSU and Head of the Laboratory of Animal Cell Biochemistry at the A.N. Bach Institute of Biochemistry, were also involved in the establishment of the new Institute.

The first director was Professor Yakov O. Parnas, a well-known biochemist, an international authority, and a full member of European academies, who was invited from Lviv. However, tragic circumstances and illness prevented his scientific and organisational activities and in 1947 he handed over the leadership to Professor S.E. Severin. In 1949 Vasily N. Orekhovich, a young well-known biochemist, became the director of the Institute. It lay before him to be a head of a new Institute for the next 40 years. The Institute old-timers tell that V.N. Orekhovich addressed a letter directly to I.V. Stalin. In this letter he justified the importance of medical biochemistry for the country and science and asked for support with equipment and funding. The appeal was successful, and during the following years the Institute was well equipped with the most advanced instrument arsenal for that time.

Although equipment, buildings, labs were important, involvement of distinguished scientists such as Professors A.E. Braunstein, M.M. Shemyakin, N.A. Yudaev, V.A. Engelhardt, S.E. Severin, and S.R. Mardashyov, who later became the “golden fund” of Russian biochemistry, were critically important for establishment and development of the Institute. The professional recognition gained by these scientists is not limited today simply to the Institute. They are well-known in all corners of Russia. On the basis of a number of laboratories of the Institute of Biological and Medical Chemistry, and taking into account the level of fundamental and applied achievements, new institutions were established, which later became the leading scientific centers of the country.

• The laboratory headed by Prof. M.M. Shemyakin served as the basis for the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1959), and Mikhail M. Shemyakin became its first director. Nowadays, this institute is known as the State Scientific Centre Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry named after Academicians M.M. Shemyakin and Y.A. Ovchinnikov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the largest institution of physico-chemical biology and biotechnology in Russia.
• The laboratory of intermediate nitrogen metabolism, headed by Prof. A.E. Braunstein, an outstanding specialist in the field of biological catalysis, served as the basis for the establishment of the Department of Enzymology at the Institute of Molecular Biology of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1959.
• The Laboratory of Hormones, headed by Prof. N.A. Yudaev, was transformed into the Institute of Experimental Endocrinology and Chemistry of Hormones of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences (1965) and served as the basis for the establishment of the current National Medical Research Centre of Endocrinology of the Ministry of Health of Russia, which headed the county’s endocrinological service.
• The Institute of Medical Enzymology of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences was established in 1982 on the basis of the Laboratory of Enzymology under the leadership of Academician of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences S.R. Mardashyov

Under the leadership of Academician V.N. Orekhovich, the Institute of Biological and Medical Chemistry laid the foundation for modern protein chemistry and the study of molecular bases of pathology in the USSR. Its laboratories worked in the main branches of biological and medical chemistry: enzymology, endocrinology, biochemistry of proteins, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, lipid metabolism. The conducted studies on isolation and characterization of enzymes of different classes and substrate specificity, the research of structures of the active site and biological functions of proteolytic enzymes determined the importance of these scientific directions for diagnostics and therapy of various human diseases. In the Institute much attention was paid to application of the basic biochemical research to medicine. For many years of the existence of the Department of Biochemistry of the Central Institute for Advanced Medical Education (now RMANPO), headed by V.N. Orekhovich, thousands of medical biochemists from all corners of the former Soviet Union passed through the Institute and received excellent biochemical training.

For many years, the Moscow Biochemical Society met at the Institute to discuss the salient problems of biochemistry. The Institute has hosted such world-renowned scientists as double Nobel Prize recipient L. Pauling, Nobel Prize winner Professor R. Kornberg of Stanford University, Professor Doty of Cambridge University, Professor A. Lehninger, and others.

By the early 1960s, a unique team of high-class experts in almost all areas of modern biochemistry (biochemistry of proteins, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, hormones, biologically active peptides and amines) had formed. It included a new generation of graduates of Soviet universities (Professors S.Y. Kaplansky, T.S. Paskhina, V.S. Tongur, E.L. Rosenfeld, V.Z. Gorkin, V.O. Shpikiter, V.I. Mazurov, B.F. Korovkin, I.I. Votrin, and N.I. Solovyova), who effectively worked at the Institute of Biological and Medical Chemistry of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, maintained research in the field biological and medical chemistry at the international level. The postgraduate and PhD students R.B. Hesin, Y.A. Pankov, T.T. Berezov were the future founders of entire scientific directions, and later became academicians as well.. Such scientists as I.S. Severina, I.S. Lukomskaya, I.V. Tsvetkova, A.I. Tochilkin, G.V. Ponomarev, G.Y. Wiederschein, V.F. Pozdnev, A.E. Berman, N.N. Sokolov contributed to the development of scientific research.

Many achievements in Russian and global biomedical science are associated with the names of scientists working at the Institute. A.E. Braunstein discovered the process of enzymatic transamination; in co-authorship with Academician M.M. Shemyakin, he created the theory of pyridoxal phosphate-dependent reactions. V.N. Orekhovich and his collaborators discovered and characterized several new proteinases, which were included in the official enzyme classification. The identification of the physiological function of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) as a key enzyme in the regulation of vascular tone became a discovery of world significance.

Nowadays ACE inhibitors become popular pharmacological agents, widely used as the first priority hypotensive drugs all over the world. E.L. Rosenfeld and her collaborators discovered a new enzyme of carbohydrate metabolism known as α-glucoamylase. A significant contribution to the study of biogenic amines and amine oxidases and enzymes involved in their metabolism was made by V.Z. Gorkin. The production of the first domestic antibiotics, levomycin and syntomycin, was developed and introduced into industrial production. The industrial production of 20 different amino acids was established, and a number of clinical and biochemical methods were introduced into practice.

Initially, the Institute of Biological and Medical Chemistry was located in the building of the former Patriarchate Hotel at 10, Pogodinskaya Street. At the end of the 60s, on the initiative of V.N. Orekhovich, next to the Pogodinskaya hut, two six-storey buildings were built and appropriately equipped, creating a new infrastructure and the look of a modern scientific centre. Thus, the renewed organization of laboratories, administrative and economic blocks was determined.

Taking into account the great role of Academician V.N. Orekhovich in the development of biochemistry and medicinal chemistry in the country, in 2000 the Institute of Biomedical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences was named after him.

In 1989, V.N. Orekhovich handed over the leadership of the Institute to the corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, Prof. A.I. Archakov, one of the world's leading experts in the study of membrane structure and molecular mechanisms of biological oxidation. His scientific school of A.I. Archakov made a significant contribution to the development of the main issues of microsomal oxidation, the study of molecular organization of cytochrome P450-containing oxygenase systems, chemical mechanisms of membrane damage and methods of their effective reconstruction These studies were awarded four times with State Prizes: USSR, RSFSR and RF.

At the end of the 20th century, when the genome was basically deciphered by the efforts of the international Consortium, the question arose: “How is the information structure, gene, connected with the actual working machine, protein? (A.I.Archakov. “What is behind genomics? Proteomics. Voprosy med.chemii”, 2000). Academician A.I. Archakov was the first to define a consistent line of strategy of modern biomedical science: GENOME – PROTEOME – METABOLOME – NANOTECHNOLOGIES – PERSONALISED MEDICINE, built instead of (or in addition to) protocol medicine. For that new formulations of research tasks, new technologies of experiments, new mentality and level of researchers were required. Fulfilling these tasks corresponded to the rebuilding of the infrastructure, composition and style of work of the Institute as a whole.

In the same year, the Institute of Medical Enzymology of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, headed by a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences B.F. Korovkin, rejoined the Institute of Biological and Medical Chemistry. Since then, Academician Alexander Ivanovich Archakov has been the permanent Director and since 2015 the Scientific Head of the Institute of BioMedical Chemistry. He transformed the Institute into a modern research institution with international prestige. Under the scientific and organizational leadership of A.I. Archakov, new subdivisions were created at the Institute, new research areas were formed, oriented towards the solution of modern problems, forming the basis of a dynamically developing scientific school. During the years of his leadership, the Institute became the herald of progress of Russian medical biochemistry, occupying leading positions in the country and in the world in such areas as proteomics, genomics, bioinformatics, nanobiotechnology. Under the A.I. Archakov leadership, the Institute's staff developed and created a fundamentally new hepatoprotective drug with antiviral activity “Phosphogliv” for the treatment of liver diseases of various etiologies. It is now widely used in practical pharmacology. The Institute's employees who developed “Phosphogliv” became laureates of the Russian Federation Government Prize in Science and Technology (2003).

Academician A.I. Archakov initiated the inclusion of the Institute in the implementation of the large-scale international scientific project “Human Proteome”, highlighting the genocentric approach of protein identification as a task of medical purpose.

In 2015, Andrei V. Lisitsa, Doctor of Biological Sciences, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (since 2016, he became an Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences), was elected as Director of the Institute. Under his leadership, the research for the International Human Proteome Project, which brings together scientific groups from 21 countries, continued. Furthermore, world-class studies were carried out in the field of post-genomic medicine at the intersection of large-scale studies of genomes, proteomes, metabolomes and other “omics technologies” to find ways to detect and correct the molecular events underlying human diseases, to develop the basis for health saving, allowing to detect disease at an early stage, and to create a scientific basis for “digital images” of biospecimens.

In 2020, Elena Alexandrovna Ponomarenko, Doctor of Biological Sciences, an internationally distinguished expert in the field of bioinformatics and post-genomic data analysis was elected as Director of the Institute. The staff of the Institute includes Academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences A.I. Archakov, A.V. Lisitsa; corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences V.V. Poroikov, K.N. Yarygin, Professors O.A. Gomazkov, V.V. Shumyantseva, A.S. Ivanov, E.F. Kolesanova, A.E. Medvedev, Y.D. Ivanov, A.Yu. Misharin; RAS Professors V.G. Zgoda, P.G. Lokhov, A.A. Lagunin.

In 2020, the next step in the development of the level of research was made. A unique Avogadro research facility was registered on the basis of the Institute. The Avogadro unit is a complex based on molecular detectors and is purposed to detect proteins at low and ultra-low concentrations in order to identify markers of socially significant diseases and targets of effective drugs.

According to Academician A.I. Archakov, the global achievement of the 20th century lies in the task of deciphering the human proteome. The solution for this task will make it possible to develop new principles of human health assessment and identify biological markers indicative of pathological conditions. However, there is an unsolved problem of sensitivity of bioanalysis methods that hinders the path to the solution: it is necessary to detect single copies of molecules, which are early precursors of disease, in a microliter of blood. Unfortunately, this is beyond the control of modern routine systems.
Upon being presented with the State Prize in 2023, A.I. Archakov said: “We are working in the field of post-genomic sciences, they are designed to continue and complete the essence of genomics. With the development of nanotechnology, certain devices have appeared; with their aid we can carry out targeted manipulation of individual atoms, molecules, viruses, microorganisms and other particles, and diagnose the state of the organism by them. There is no doubt that in the future life science will take a dominant position. It is a different world. And completely different possibilities”.

Also, in 2020, the Institute became a participant of the world-class research centre “Digital Biodesign and Personalized Healthcare” within the framework of the national project “Science and Universities”. The aim of the research center is to carry out scientific research aimed at solving problems in the field of biomedicine according to the priorities of scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation.

An important organizational stage in the current work of the Institute includes purchase of modern equipment. Studies are carried out on exclusive equipment, including advanced technical and software solutions. Proteomic research is related to the inventory and study of post-translational modifications of proteins by means of combined technologies, such as two-dimensional electrophoresis, chromatography, mass spectrometric analysis of proteolytic fragments of proteins, nanobiotechnology. Applied laboratory research is aimed at the development of medical diagnostics of socially significant diseases, research of industrially significant microorganisms and others. Special attention is paid to the development and provision of computer technologies as a basis for information and software development.

Scientific and structural divisions of IBMC provide works in the following directions of modern biomedical science:

• Analytical studies in biochemistry: proteomic and metabolomic mass spectrometric studies, optical biosensors, bioelectrochemistry, nanowire and nanopore detection, electron and atomic force microscopy
• Bioinformatics and mathematical biology: computational design of drug compounds, molecular modelling, renovation of drug use, post-genomic data processing methods
• Cell biology and personalized medicine: biotechnology, regenerative medicine, molecular diagnostics
• Drug development and production: transport systems for drug delivery, drug compositions based on plant phospholipids; peptide engineering
• Centre for Scientific and Practical Education: development and popularisation of omics technologies; development of modern methodology of scientific training.

Annually, the Institute employees publish about 200 scientific articles in Russian and international scientific journals; over the last decade, 45 Russian and 2 international patents, 7 certificates of state registration of database, 8 certificates of state registration of computer programs have been obtained; 12 books, 31 book chapters, have been published. The analysis of pathophysiological and biochemical mechanisms of pathologies, including the COVID-19 pandemic, is found relevant.

On the IBMC basis, the Centre for Collective Use “Human Proteome” has been operating for many years. It has the scientific and methodological potential of modern equipment and highly qualified personnel.

Teaching and research facilities for undergraduate and postgraduate students have been organized.

There is the Dissertation Council 24.1.172.01 (D 001.010.01) for the defense of dissertations for the degrees of Candidate and Doctor of Sciences operating at the Institute.

The Institute is the founder of two scientific journals: from 1955 until 2003, there was published a journal under the title “Voprosy Meditsinskoi Khimii” (Problems of Medicinal Chemistry), the name of which was changed in 2003 to “Biomeditsinskaya Khimiya” (Biomedical Chemistry). The journal publishes papers in Russian and English, dealing with all areas of medicinal chemistry and related disciplines, including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, bioinformatics, enzymology, molecular biology, biochemical pharmacology, molecular and cellular medicine, clinical biochemistry, and others. Since 2018, the second journal “Biomedical Chemistry: Research and Methods” is also published in Russian and English under an Open Access license.