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March 4, 2015 marked 80 years since the birth of Professor Vladimir Isaakovich Minkin, previously an active member of the editorial board of "CHC", and currently a member of the advisory board of the journal. Vladimir Isaakovich's creative career in science began while still a student. Under the guidance of his mentor, Boris Ivanovich Ardashev, he studied the synthesis of quinoline bases. This work served as the groundwork of his candidate's dissertation which he successfully defended just one year after completing studies at the Rostov State University. Possessing a clearly expressed conceptual and theoretical way of thinking, Vladimir Isaakovich quickly realized that his true vocation is physical organic chemistry that prospered in those years through the work of Hammett, Ingold, Pauling, Mulliken, and many other outstanding scientists. As one of the first in our country among organic chemists, Vladimir Isaakovich began to extensively use quantum-chemical calculations, correlation analysis, dipole moments, and various types of spectroscopy, especially electron, fluorescence, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy already in the early 1960s. While heterocyclic compounds have always remained the focus of Vladimir Isaakovich's work, contribution he made to the chemistry of organic metal complexes, non-classical carbon structures and aromatic compounds is by no means smaller. Thus, his doctoral dissertation that he defended in 1966 (at the age of 31!) was devoted to the chemistry and structure of azomethines, a class of organic compounds of utmost importance that play a key role in the metabolism of amino acids. Therein he first demonstrated the acoplanar structure of these compounds and revealed the rules of transmission of electronic effects within the molecules.

Virtually all aspects of Vladimir Isaakovich's research have been summarized in his numerous monographs and textbooks which have become an indispensable tool in the research of hundreds of scientists and played a particularly important role in the training of young scholars. Vladimir Isaakovich's books distinct themselves with depth and clarity of narration, rich illustrative material, and, most importantly, orientation towards the most relevant and common issues of chemistry that had not yet found their way into university courses and especially textbooks. The monograph "Correlation Analysis" enjoyed a particular success in this regard, written in 1966 in collaboration with Prof. Yu. A. Zhdanov, with whom Vladimir Isaakovich had long term creative friendship. To a large extent, this also applies to his book devoted to the problems of aromaticity, written by Vladimir Isaakovich and his young colleagues M. N. Glukhovtsev and B. Ya. Simkin. Two editions of this book have been published abroad, and it is one of the most cited on the subject. Perhaps one of the most important of Vladimir Isaakovich's scientific contributions was the discovery of the phenomenon of acylotropism together with Yu. A. Zhdanov and L. P. Olekhnovich in the early 1970s. The idea of the possibility of rapid and reversible migration within the molecules of groups heavier than the proton was in the air at the time, and had been implemented by several research groups simultaneously. Vladimir Isaakovich and his colleagues managed to do it a little earlier than the others and, most importantly, on a subject which is directly related to such fundamental biochemical processes as the transfer of acyl groups and, ultimately, synthesis of proteins.

Albeit a brilliant lecturer and methodologist, Vladimir Isaakovich was compelled to move away from teaching due to lack of time. Nevertheless, he remained an active promoter of scientific knowledge in such novel fields as nanochemistry, spintronics, molecular machines, photochromism, supercritical fluids, and so on. On his initiative, the school of young chemists and an advanced lectorium for students are operating at the Chemistry Department of the Southern Federal University.

V. I. Minkin was awarded the title of Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation for his scientific achievements. He is the laureate of the USSR State Prize and a number of prestigious academic and scientific awards of which the Humboldt Prize, awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany), should be especially highlighted.

The editorial board of the journal "Chemistry of Heterocyclic Compounds" congratulates Vladimir Isaakovich Minkin on his birthday wishing him good health and many years of creative activity.

Prof. A. F. Pozharskii,

Southern Federal University