Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a rare and aggressive type of cancer known for its rapid progression and a 5% survival rate, despite modern advances in surgery and chemotherapy. Effective treatment of pleural mesothelioma requires new therapeutic strategies, one of which is the overload of malignant cells with nitrogen monoxide. This molecule has a multifaceted effect on the pleural cavity: it has both cytotoxic and proliferative properties, depending on the concentration and duration of exposure.Scientists of the Laboratory of Nitrogen Compounds have developed a method preparation of (1,2,4-oxadiazolyl)furoxanes. Furoxan derivatives are known for their ability to release nitrogen monoxide when activated by intracellular thiols and have already shown their effectiveness in combating various types of tumors. At the City University of Hong Kong, the synthesized structures were studied for anti-cancer properties relative to the mouse mesothelioma cell line and the human mesothelioma cell line. The leading compounds showed high activity in micromolar concentration, surpassing the reference drug cisplatin. It is assumed that further research will include a detailed study of the mechanism of activity of the obtained substances, as well as an expansion of the library of available structures to determine the effect of substituents on anticancer properties. 

Most recently, we released the work that was mentioned in the previous post. The entire synthetic layer of tasks was performed by a graduate student of our laboratory, Yuri Alekseevich Sidunets. Yuri is an extremely versatile person, painstakingly and tirelessly moves science forward - that's why he became the hero of our mini-interview. #people of science 

The young scientist shared with us about his path : How Yuri's thorny path from St. Petersburg began to the present day.  We hope you will find a format in which we will try to highlight the thoughts and opinions of young scientists from our laboratory and try to study what is ultimately the driving force of scientific progress! Yuri was born in St. Petersburg, graduated from St. Petersburg State Institute of Technology (Technical University) in 2022 with honors in the field of Chemical Technology (Organic Substances and Materials in Chemical Technology) and went to conquer Moscow in 2022, where he decided to enter graduate school at the Institute of Organic Chemistry to develop and improve his skills chemistry named after N.D. Zelinsky. Yuri joined our group in September 2023 and actively joined the work. 

The competition of student papers at the N.D. Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry has ended and the winners of the scholarship, including students of our laboratory, have been selected.
Your achievement is the result of hard work, talent and dedication. We wish you further success in your scientific activities and new victories! 

This month, our latest review was published in the journal Chem ElectroChem. How to use electric current in the synthesis of nitrogen heterocycles? Which intermediates are key in the synthesis of nitrogen heterocycles by organic electrochemistry? How does the solvent affect, and can these processes be called "green"? It is these questions that we have tried to answer in our short review, which contains the main achievements of various research groups over the past 5-7 years. 

By the way, the Open Access magazine can be read without a subscription, and we did not have to pay for publication, which is especially pleasant;) 

April 2, 1962 was the starting point for our laboratory, because on that day, by order of the director of the Institute of Organic Chemistry, Academician B.A. Kazansky, Laboratory No. 19 was founded.

At that time, the new structural division of the Institute was called the Laboratory of Monomers and Polymers, and a senior researcher, Candidate of Chemical Sciences Maj-Heinrich Augustovich Schwechheimer was appointed acting head of the laboratory.Then , from 1964 to 1995 , the laboratory was headed by a Doctor of Chemical Sciences, Professor . Lenor Ivanovich Khmelnitsky. In the period 1995-2021, the head of the laboratory was Nina Nikolaevna Makhova, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation. Since 2021, the laboratory has been headed by Leonid Leonidovich Fershtat, Doctor of Chemical Sciences.

According to data for 2024, the laboratory has more than 35 employees and consists of more than 80% of young scientific personnel. Top scientific research continues to be carried out in the laboratory on the synthesis and reactivity of nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds of various classes, as well as the search for new pharmacologically active ingredients, high-energy structures and components of new functional materials.  

We sincerely congratulate our laboratory colleagues Ekaterina Vinogradova and Dmitry Vinogradov on their brilliant PhD theses!It is not often seen when such a wonderful scientific family is defended in one day, in which perseverance, hard work and a thirst for beauty are distinctive features.We wish the guys further scientific achievements, brilliant discoveries and inexhaustible enthusiasm in their careers. Keep up the good work! 

From March 15 to March 21, the All-Russian Youth Scientific School-conference "Actual problems of organic Chemistry" was held in the unique ski resort (Sheregesh village). This is the eighth time this conference has been held!A delegation of our laboratory staff made a speech at the conference - Alexey Konnov, PhD, gave an oral presentation, and Leonid Fershtat, PhD, Head of our laboratory, delivered a key report. It was nice to see our close colleagues from the Institute of Organic Chemistry at the conference.We hope to come here in the future, and we wish all other participants exciting reports, new interesting collaborations and productive work!  

The research-engineer of our laboratory Shaferov Alexander successfully defended his thesis for the degree of Candidate of Chemical Sciences on the topic "Synthesis of new high-energy and pharmacologically oriented compounds containing 1,2,5-oxadiazole cycle".The team of our laboratory wishes Alexander not to stop on his way and conquer new horizons in the future! 

From September 18 to 22, our team, consisting of student Alexander Shuvaev, researcher Alexander Larin and head of the laboratory Leonid Fershtat, participated in Kazan in the school-conference "Molecular design of biologically active substances: Biochemical and medical aspects" (MDBAS-2023). Alexander Shuvaev presented a report on the topic “Development of a universal electrochemical method for the synthesis of derivatives of 2-H-1,2,3-triazole” Alexander Larin presented a report on the topic “NO-donor pharmacologically oriented derivatives based on furoxan: synthesis and properties” Leonid Fershtat, as an invited speaker, presented a report on the topic “Methods of assembling new hybrid heterocyclic NO donors". The intense program of the conference included a wide range of relevant fundamental and applied topics in organic, bioorganic medical chemistry and pharmacology. Excellent and interesting reports captured the attention of all the guests. This conference is an excellent platform for discussing and developing new scientific projects.

The intense program of the conference included a wide range of relevant fundamental and applied topics in organic, bioorganic medical chemistry and pharmacology. Excellent and interesting reports captured the attention of all the guests. This conference is an excellent platform for discussing and developing new scientific projects. 

Truly green chemistry has enlightened our head of electrochemistry, namely, to create a strategy for electrochemical reactions of the formation of N–N bonds: direct access to the previously ignored 1,2,3-triazole-1-oxides. An interesting and very strong work of our scientific group, where the headliners were students Ksenia Titenkova, Alexander Shuvaev, who tirelessly staged an infinite number of experiments and Fedor Teslenko, who successfully accompanied everything and connected all synthetic patterns with calculated ones. Bravo! Welcome to organic electrochemistry, an article in the journal Green Chemistry as a highlight on the cake.Available online: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3GC01601C