by Mark MOKULSKY, Dr. Sc. (Phys. & Math.), Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow The chief cause of his life was involvement in creating the nation's nuclear shield to make our country defend herself against the deadly danger of the late 1940s. For all his multifarious interests and activities calling for enormous application and effort, he, Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov (AP), was among the founding fathers of molecular biology studies in the Soviet Union. We ought to remember that, though molecular biology might look as a sideline for AP. But it was not. Now let us think back to the "hot", hectic times of the 1950s, as the nation went on an all-out effort to advance her nuclear science and industries. AP was snowed under with work: nuclear reactors and power stations, icebreakers and submarines, aircraft driven by nuclear engines (there were projects like that!), and lots of other things unknown to us yet; all that taxed his energy. This was his forte and line of responsibility. In those days the notion of responsibility had a different dimension. The powers that be put pressure on him, sure; but he was well aware that the very history of his country depended on his success. In this extraordinary, touch-and-go situation, something else caught Alexandrov's attention: a new science, molecular biology, was born in the world. So AP felt like taking up this job, too... Addressing the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1956, Anatoly Alexandrov urged the Academy's president, Alexander Nesmeyanov, to report to the government about the disastrous situation in national biology and in rearing research personnel for it. This address had no overt consequences to him and, well conscious of the national significance of this problem, AP did not desist from his efforts in pleading this cause. Igor Tamm, a great physicist, one of the makers of the Soviet hydrogen bomb who was among the masterminds of th ... Читать далее