Russian Chemical Bulletin, Vol. 43, No. 11, November, 1994 vi

N. A. Plate (to his 60th birthday)

Dear Nikolai Alfredovich!

The Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Division of General and Technical Chemistry of the RAS, and the Editorial Board and the Editorial Staff of the Russian Chemical Bulletin journal congratulate you on your sixtieth birthday.

You began your scientific activity at the chair of High-Molecular Compounds of the Department of Chemistry of the M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University and worked your way up from a postgraduate student to a Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a Professor at this chair, and the Director of the A. V. Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis.

Widely kimwn are your investigations in the field of structural and chemical modification of polymeric materials, which resulted in the discovery of microphase separation in modified polymeric systems and served as the base for the development of large-capacity polymeric materials with controllable properties.

Your works on the study of kinetics and statistics of macromolecular reactions, which took into account characteristic features of conformational structure and the nature of functional groups of polymers, contributed greatly to the development of the fundamentals of the theory of reactivity of macromolecules.

You and your pupils were the first to predict the possibility of the existence of the mesomorphic state in the polymers. This phenomenon was experimentally confirmed by investigating comb-shaped polymers possessing a unique set of structural, optical, and electrooptical properties peculiar to "true" liquid crystals. Your pioneering works in this field have given impetus to the development of studies of mesomorphic polymers in a lot of scientific centers and have been recognized all over the world.

You are successfully developing a new field of research associated with the use of polymeric materials and products in medicine; a number of materials developed by you and your pupils is being used in practical medicine.

High scientific and human qualities attract young scientists to you; the scientific school, created by you, numbers many tens of Science and Philosophy Doctors, which work successfully in Russia and other countries. You have rightfully become the first winner of the prize named after your teacher, Academician V. A. Kargin.

Widely known is your great organizing and public activity as the deputy Secretary Academician of the Division of General and Technical Chemistry of the RAS, the Director of a large Institute of the RAS, the coordinator (on the side of the RAS) of the Russian-Italian scientific cooperation in the field of chemistry, the Head of a direction of the State Scientific and Technical Program on Environmentally-Safe and Resource-Saving Processes of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, the President of the Russian Membrane Society, the Editor-in-Chief of the Vysokomolekulyarnye Soedineniya journal (Polymer Science in English Translation), a member of the Editorial Board of our journal and a number of other scientific journals. Your active participation in the Pagwash movement brought you the International Prize for your merits in the field of chemical disarmament. Your scientific achievements have been honored with the State Prize of 1985 and a number of government awards.

Dear Nikolai Al'fredovich, we wish you sound health, cheerfulness, and new successes in science. Let your belief in the future of the Russian science, the hope for its normalization, and the love to your pupils be the source of your enthusiasm.

Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk. Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 11, p. 1861, November, 1994.

1066-5285/94/4311-00vi $12.50 �9 1995 Plenum Publishing Corporation