O. O. Bohomolets Institute of Physiology is the flagship of physiological science. It was founded in 1953 on the basis of two research institutions - the Institute of Experimental Biology and Pathology (under MPH) and the Institute of Clinical Physiology (under AS UkrSSR). P.H. Kostyuk, academician of NAS and AMS of Ukraine, Russian and European AS, has headed the Institute since 1966. Scientists of the Institute carry out research along three lines:
- molecular mechanisms of specific changes in cell membranes during main nervous processes;
- cell organization in the major brain systems and principles of information processing within them;
- regulatory mechanisms of functional systems in normal condition and pathology.
Principal research achievements:
The Institute carries out at the highest world level top-priority research in three areas: molecular physiology, cell physiology, neuro- and pathophysiology.
A major trend in today's cellular and molecular physiology - research into the mechanisms underlying intercellular signalling in different types of nerve cells - is headed by NAS academician Platon H. Kostyuk.
Kostyuk's team studied a complex aggregate of molecular mechanisms formed by calcium signalling in the development of both short- and long-lived physiological processes and mediated by neuronal systems performing various functions. They found that such mechanisms are disturbed in the most common and severe abnormal organic changes (hypoxy, epilepsy, diabetes), so a deep insight into them is of utmost importance for medicine.
NAS academician Oleg A. Kryshtal and his research team were the first to study the role of monotropic purinoceptors in the central nervous system. Two endogenous polypeptides with powerful analgesic effects have been identified.
New data have been obtained concerning molecular, nervous and hormonal regulation of body visceral systems (cardiac performance, blood circulation, the efficiency of immune system, respiration, liver etc.).
NAS academician Oleksiy A. Moibenko and his group, on the basis of their own research into the mechanisms underlying pathological processes in the cardiovascular system and endogenous mechanisms of cardioprotection, have successfully completed the development of 'Korvitin' and Flokalin' cardioprotectors and their introduction to medical practice.
NAS corresponding member Vadim F. Sagach and his research team examined the roles of mitochondrial nitric oxide and of mitochondrial pore opening in the development of cardiovascular dysfunction. A technique for diagnostics of mitochondrial pore opening and reperfusion damage to tissues of the heart and blood vessels during surgery in clinical practice has been developed.
