[Rashba Olena Iakivna--a gifted scientist and science organizer]

Professor Olena Yakivna Rashba, doctor of science in biology, was born in Kyiv, to the physician's family; graduated from the Medical-Prophylactic Faculty of the First Medical Institute (1927-1931). Since 1933 she had been working at the Institute of Biochemistry of the Academy of Sciences of Ukr.SSR: first as a laborant and then as a junior and as a senior scientific worker. In 1939 O. Ya. Rashba defended a thesis for the Candidates degree in biology, and in 1951 the thesis for the Doctor's degree. From 1943 to 1945 O. Ya. Rashba was at the front as the major of Medical Service. She was awarded the Red Star Order and medals For Capture of Berlin and For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Before 1941 Olena Yakivna investigated, under the supervision of Acad. O. V. Palladin, biochemical topography of departments of the central and peripheral nervous system, as well as variations in content of protein and its metabolism products in different departments of brain during embryonal development of vertebral animals. In 1945-1951 O. Ya. Rashba began investigating peculiarities of carbohydrate metabolism in the brain. The data obtained by the scientist evidence that two enzymes (amylase and maltase) function in the brain which split glycogen to glucose in hydrolytic way. Interrelation between amylolytic and phospholytic enzymatic systems was detected in these experiments. Olena Yakivna has also developed the method of obtaining nuclei from the cells of nerve tissue and studied their composition. From 1951 to 1973 O. Ya. Rashba headed the Department of Microorganisms of the Institute of Microbiology of AS of Ukr.SSR and was a co-author of the efficient drug against bacterial cancer of tomatos "Arenarin". O. Ya. Rashbe has published about 100 scientific works, 2 monographs among them; she obtained 2 author's certificates.