ALBERT ZAICHIK — OUTSTANDING RUSSIAN PATHOPHISIOLOGIST: SCIENTIST AND SCHOLAR

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the 80-th birthday of the outstanding Russian Pathophysiologist Professor Albert
Sh. Zaichik. A wonderful organizer and bright teacher Albert Zaichik had transformed scientific and educationalmethodological basis of Pathophysiology department of the Leningrad Pediatric Medical Institute into an advanced research and educational center of Soviet Pathophysiology, a birthplace of scientific and teaching personnel, a cradle of creative initiatives that had no analogues in the domestic medical education and biomedical science. The work of Albert Zaichik and his collaborators resulted in the production of regulatory hormone-like immunoglobulins, stimulating the genetic apparatus of living cells, affecting their growth and function. With world novelty, these works continued the studies started by Elijah E. Mechnikov, Efim S. London and Leonid R. Perelman and concerned the problem of the regulatory role of physiological natural auto-antibodies. Professor Zaichik published about 400 papers, books and manuals. He was a gifted teacher. About 90 of his students defended dissertations under his guidance becoming Candidates and Doctors of Medical Sciences. His cognitive style was unique because of combining concrete applied ingenious mind with inclination to deep philosophical reasoning and generalization. He created intermingled unity of
logical and historical approaches. In his interpretation the most essential part of the whole course of Pathophysiology was relativity of defense, the paradoxical ability of natural defensive mechanism to cause self-harm.