An independent Department of General Chemistry was created at the Minsk Medical Institute in 1930. Until that time chemistry teaching to medical students was carried out at the Department of General Chemistry of the Belarusian State University.
In 1982, the Department of General Chemistry was reorganized into the Department of Bioinorganic and Biophysical Chemistry.
In 1987, Assoc. Prof. Barkovsky E.V. was appointed head of the department. And in 1990 the course of bioorganic chemistry was transferred to the department of radiation medicine and ecology and the department again became known as the Department of General Chemistry.
After the opening of the Faculty of Pharmacy, two new disciplines began to be taught at the Department of General Chemistry: general and inorganic chemistry (for the 1st course) and physical and colloidal chemistry (for the 2nd course).
Since July 2016, Associate Professor V.V. Khrustalev, a student of Professor E.V. Barkovsky, has been heading the Department of General Chemistry.
The staff of the Department throughout the entire period of its activity has been actively improving the methods and forms of educational, methodological, scientific work.
Educational and methodical work since 1990
The staff of the department constantly carries out significant educational and methodical work in several areas:
- teaching general chemistry to the 1st year students;
- teaching general chemistry to foreign students in English;
- teaching general and inorganic chemistry to the 1st year students of the pharmaceutical faculty of the full-time and correspondence departments, including teaching in English;
- teaching physical and colloidal chemistry to the 2nd year students of the Faculty of Pharmacy and the 3rd year students of the correspondence department of the Faculty of Pharmacy, including teaching in English;
- teaching the basics of general, inorganic and organic chemistry to students of the pre-university department;
- teaching the basics of general, inorganic and organic chemistry to foreign students of the pre-iniversity department;
- teaching the basics of general, inorganic and organic chemistry to foreign students of the pre-university department in English;
The educational and methodical work of the department is aimed at the most complete assimilation of the most important theoretical and applied aspects of the subjects by students.
The department is constantly working to integrate the teaching of general chemistry with a number of departments of medical and biological profile.
The department pays special attention to the planning and methodical support of the lecture course: multimedia presentations of lectures have been created taking into account the latest scientific data.
The staff of the department have prepared and published original training and teaching aids on all topics of laboratory and practical classes.
The section "Biomedical significance of the topic", which clearly outlines the issues of integration with biochemistry, physiology, pathophysiology, ecology and clinical disciplines, precedes each topic of the training manual. The description of laboratory work is preceded by sufficient theoretical concepts. The course of each laboratory work is described so that the student can independently understand and complete it without outside help. We believe that the assignments for independent work (tasks, tests) given on each topic can be of great help in mastering the course. To make it easier for students to understand the material, the text includes the solution of typical problems for each topic.
The pre-university department for foreign students at BSMU began its work on September 1, 1990. The staff of the department takes an active part in the work of conferences and seminars, where issues of teaching chemistry in Russian and English for foreign students of the preparatory department are discussed.
- Training in chemistry for applicants by the staff of the Department of General Chemistry is carried out:
- at the full-time pre-university courses;
- evening pre-university courses;
- correspondence pre-university courses.
In 2008, the department began teaching general chemistry in English for the 1st year foreign students. In 2014, we launched the process of teaching in English at the pre-university department for foreigners.
History of scientific work since 1990
From 1987 to the second half of the 90s, the scientific theme of the department was associated with the study of the processes of regulation of the metabolic state of various types of animal cells in the clinic and experiment. The results of these studies were: two doctoral dissertations, three PhD theses, editions of five monographs, three copyright certificates for inventions.
For the last 20 years, the scientific issues of the department have been associated with the problems of molecular evolution of genetic macromolecules.
In 2011, the PhD thesis was defended by V.V. Khrustalev. "Biochemical and evolutionary aspects of mutational pressure in the genomes of prokaryotes and viruses." The works that formed the basis of this thesis were published in the journals: Biochimie, International Union of Biochemictry and Molecular Biology Life, Computational Biology Chemistry, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Immunological Investigations, Molecular Immunology, etc. The monograph “Biochemical mechanisms of mutational pressure in the methodology of computational biology "(Khrustalev VV, 2010, edited by Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor Barkovsky EV) contains a detailed description of the original methods of bioinformatics research. The monograph "Replication, transcription, mutational pressure" (Khrustalev V.V., 2011, edited by Doctor of Biological Sciences, prof. Barkovsky E.V.) sets out the foundations of the theory of mutational pressure and the results of its conceptual development.
Khrustalev V.V., Ph.D. in Biology, was awarded the international Scopus Award Belarus 2013 for his outstanding contribution to the development of science in the field of biology in the field of higher education in the Republic of Belarus.
Since 2016, the department has been actively working on the research work "Stability of the secondary structure of proteins", which combines both bioinformatics approaches and methods of physical chemistry.
In 2017, the department opened an MD in biochemistry.
From 2018 to 2020, the staff of the department has been working on the implementation of the BRFFR-RFBR grant "Search for new ways to block the penetration of the influenza virus into the cell at the stage of membrane fusion and matrix disintegration."
Latest publications include the study of mutational pressure in SARS-CoV-2 published in the Frontiers in Microbiology, as well as the study on the evolution of proteins published in The Protein Journal.
Khrustalev VV, Giri R, Khrustaleva TA, Kapuganti SK, Stojarov AN, Poboinev VV. Translation-Associated Mutational U-Pressure in the First ORF of SARS-CoV-2 and Other Coronaviruses. Front Microbiol. 2020 Sep 22;11:559165. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.559165. PMID: 33072018; PMCID: PMC7536284.
Khrustalev VV. Random Coils of Proteins Situated Between a Beta Strand and an Alpha Helix Demonstrate Decreased Solvent Accessibility. Protein J. 2020 Aug;39(4):308-317. doi: 10.1007/s10930-020-09905-0. PMID: 32627111.
Today, the staff of the Department of General Chemistry is a friendly, efficient team with a well-organized pedagogical process and a clearly defined scientific direction.