Simon El'evich Shnol (; 21 March 1930 – 11 September 2021) was a

biophysicist Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

, and a historian of

Soviet science The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until it dissolved in 1991. During its existence, it was the largest country by are ...

. He was a professor at Physics Department of

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

and a member of

Russian Academy of Natural Sciences The Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (Russian language, Russian: Российская академия естественных наук) is a Russian non-governmental organization founded on August 31 1990 in Moscow in the former Soviet Uni ...

. His fields of interest were the oscillatory processes in biology, the theory of

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

chronobiology Chronobiology is a field of biology that examines timing processes, including periodic (cyclic) phenomena in living organisms, such as their adaptation to solar- and lunar-related rhythms. These cycles are known as biological rhythms. Chron ...

, and the history of science. He had mentored many successful scientists, including Anatoly Zhabotinsky.

Biography

Simon Shnoll was born in Moscow in 1930. His father was Eli Gershevich Shnol, a linguist and philosopher. His mother was Faina Yakovlevna Yudovich, a teacher of Russian language and literature. In 1946, he was enrolled to

(MSU). After graduation, he was engaged in developing new methods for using

radioactive isotope A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess numbers of either neutrons or protons, giving it excess nuclear energy, and making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ...

s in medicine, in the Central Institute for Improvement of Medicine in Moscow, where he worked until 1959. In 1960 he went to work at MSU. Since 1975 he taught as a Professor of Biophysics. Since 1963, he was the head of Laboratory of Physical Biochemistry at the Institute of Biophysics in

Pushchino Pushchino ( rus, Пущино, p=ˈpuɕːɪnə) is a town in Moscow Oblast, Russia, an important scientific center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Situated south of Moscow, and 13 km south-east of Serpukhov, on the right side of the Ok ...

. The first scientific papers were devoted to

ATPase ATPases (, Adenosine 5'-TriPhosphatase, adenylpyrophosphatase, ATP monophosphatase, triphosphatase, ATP hydrolase, adenosine triphosphatase) are a class of enzymes that catalyze the decomposition of ATP into ADP and a free phosphate ion or ...

s and the use of radioactive isotopes in experimental and clinical studies. He was married and has a son,

Alexey Kondrashov Alexey Simonovich Kondrashov () (born April 11, 1957) worked on a variety of subjects in evolutionary genetics. He is best known for the ''deterministic mutation hypothesis''Kondrashov, A.S. 1988. Deleterious mutations and the evolution of sexual ...

Research

From 1954 to 1957, Shnoll demonstrated a high probability of oscillatory modes in biochemical reactions. Study of chemical oscillating reactions conducted under his direction gained prominence to his graduate student Anatoly Zhabotinsky, who investigated in detail the reaction previously discovered by Boris Belousov. He later worked in the fields of

Chronobiology Chronobiology is a field of biology that examines timing processes, including periodic (cyclic) phenomena in living organisms, such as their adaptation to solar- and lunar-related rhythms. These cycles are known as biological rhythms. Chron ...

and

Astrobiology Astrobiology (also xenology or exobiology) is a scientific field within the List of life sciences, life and environmental sciences that studies the abiogenesis, origins, Protocell, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the univ ...

. He was the author of over 200 scientific papers. He was also author of the books "Physico-chemical factors of biological evolution" (1979) and "Heroes, villains, and conformists of Russian Science" (2001).WorldCat author page
/ref> He mentored 70 successful

PhD student A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

s. A minor planet « Shnollia» was named after him. During many years, Simon Shnoll was a jury chairman on Biology Olympiads conducted at

. He was a member of editorial board of Russian journal "Priroda" ("Nature").

Selected publications

*S. Shnoll Physico-chemical factors of biological evolution. - Moscow: Nauka, 1979. - 263. *S. Shnoll Cosmophysical factors in random processes . - Stockholm (Sweden): Svenska fysikarkivat, 2009. - 388. -

References

External links

Biography
(in Russian)
Biography of Zhabotinsky, in which Shnoll is mentioned
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shnoll, Simon Elevich 1930 births 2021 deaths Moscow State University alumni Scientists from Moscow Russian biophysicists Chronobiologists Academic staff of Moscow State University Soviet biophysicists Soviet Jews

Biography

Research

Selected publications

See also

References

External links