Professor Shandra Oleksiy Antonovych has passed away

Our colleague, teacher, tireless worker, highly qualified specialist, patriot of the University, and long-time head of the Department of Physiology Professor Shandra Oleksiy Antonovych has passed away.

O.A. Shandra was born in the village of Pishane, Cherkasy region. In 1975, he graduated from Odesa Medical Institute named after E. Pirogov with honours.  All his further scientific and pedagogical activities were connected with the Institute and here he went from the leader of the scientific student group, senior laboratory technician, assistant, and associate professor to the professor of the Department of Pathological Physiology. In 1977, he defended his thesis for the degree of a Candidate of Medical Sciences, in 1986, Doctor of Medical Sciences. Since 1989, Oleksiy Antonovych has been the head of the Department of Physiology at Odesa National Medical University.

In different years, O.A. Shandra was an academic secretary, dean of the faculty, vice-rector for scientific work and head of the specialized academic council of Odessa Medical University. In 1983, he was awarded the honorary title “Honored Inventor of the Ukrainian SSR”, and in 1998 the honorary title “Honored Worker of Science and Technology of Ukraine”. On the formation of a scientific and life outlook O.A. Shandra was greatly influenced by his teachers – the chairman and founder of the International Scientific Society of Pathophysiologists, academician G.M. Kryzhanivskyi, and professor, Honored Worker of Science and Technology of Ukraine R.F. Makulkin.

The high qualification of the researcher and the wide erudition of the scientist allowed O.A. Shandra to carry out a lot of relevant research, the results of which are of great theoretical and practical importance. He made a significant contribution to the doctrine of determinants, pathological systems, epileptic and antiepileptic systems, and the principle authorship and intellectual priority belong to the application of the principle of determinants to the work of the cerebral cortex.

A significant part of the work, which is also associated with the most important achievements of the creative path of Professor Shandra O.A. is the development of the principles of bioethics, the fundamental reworking of laboratory practicums from the course of physiology, which made it possible to effectively integrate the principles of teaching the discipline into a single international medical educational space.

For more than 30 years, Professor O.A. Shandra headed the Department of Physiology of Odesa National Medical University. O.A. Shandra published 370 scientific works, including 18 books (monographs, textbooks, manuals) and received 52 certificates and patents for inventions. Monographs such as “Kindling and epileptic activity”, “Nociception and antinociception (theory and practice)”, “Dysregulation of the antiepileptic system” and the textbook “Physiology” have gained wide recognition in our country and abroad. Scientific achievements of O.A. Shandra were awarded the prize of the Lenin Komsomol, as well as the Hovers international prize, and the medal of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine named after V. Pidvysotskyi. O.A. Shandra was a professor at the Soros Foundation. Under his supervision, 6 doctoral theses and 26 candidate theses were completed. Students of Oleksii Antonovych are heads of departments in our country, and many of them now work in various leading scientific centres in Europe and America.

Friends, colleagues and students of higher education are deeply saddened by the death of O.A. Shandra

Professor Shandra Oleksiy Antonovych will remain in everyone’s memory as a kind, bright, sensitive person. This is a great loss for science, for his family, relatives, colleagues and all the people he was close to.

The leadership, teaching staff of Odesa National Medical University, employees of the Department of Physiology, Biophysics, Informatics and Medical Equipment, General and Clinical Pathological Physiology, and students express their deepest condolences to the relatives and friends, the scientific and professional community.

Eternal memory to an outstanding Person, Scientist and talented Teacher!