The Russian-British round table, dedicated to the development of heterocyclic chemistry, was held in February 2012, in the conference hall of the presidium of the RAS Ural Branch. The meeting was organized by the General Consulate of Great Britain in Yekaterinburg, Ural Federal University and RAS Ural Branch. According to Mariya Bychkova, Ural scientists, in particular, from the Institute of Organic Synthesis named after I. Postovsky (IOS) are closely coordinating with colleagues from Great Britain in this sphere of knowledge. It is true, scientists in England are more engaged in creation of appropriate new materials and studies of liquid crystals, while our specialists focus on working out of antiviral preparations.

Professor Duncan Bruce from the University of York dwelt in his speech on the unique properties of liquid

Studies of crystals at the laboratory.

crystals, discussed at the meeting, which occupy an intermediate position between liquids and solids, possessing properties of both. The unique combination of regulated state of their molecules and fluidity stipulates anisotropy of the phenomena, interesting for specialists-dependence of the properties on the direction of action. Besides, the British scientist demonstrated the variety of forms of the latter, resembling a claim, ring, pizza or even a banana. As a result, today the world market is well acquainted with the so-called plane-panel displays, i.e. television sets, phones, calculators, etc. But very often we even do not know we are dealing with mesomorphic structures in everyday life. For example, they make up cellular membranes of our organism, in everyday life they are a basis for active components of all detergents. And the cobweb is durable only because it passes a mesomorphic stage before "freezing".

Then professor Bruce emphasized: further studies of liquid crystals will bring to mankind a mass of discoveries and creation of absolutely new substances, the so-called metamaterials, possessing properties not envis-

Schematic picture of substances.

aged by nature. In particular, British scientists have already integrated molecules of metal into molecules of liquid crystals. As a result, there emerged prototypes of mesomorphic displays of a new generation and new structures of mesomorphic substances unknown before. By the way, co-authors of these works are Dmitry Kozhevnikov and his brother Valery, staff members of Ural IOS.

Then at the meeting in Yekaterinburg Academician Valery Charushin spoke about the achievements of IOS staff members. He pointed out the appearance of a new line of antiviral preparations on the basis of heterocyclic compounds. Their importance for the development of medical chemistry and biology is paramount indeed-the structure of a majority of biologically important molecules contains appropriate fragments, that is why they are very important for production of new preparations. As an example the scientist used a remarkable achievement of the outstanding chemist, Academician from 1970, Isaac Postovsky (IOS is named after him). He created one of the first in the world antibacterial preparation on the basis of heterocyclic compounds-sulfidine; his work is successfully continued by academicians Oleg Chupakhin (from 1992) and Charushin himself. Today IOS laboratory researchers, with the help of computer modeling of molecular structures, have synthesized a new line of antiviral preparations, structurally analogous to DNA bases. Then Valery Charushin pointed out one of the trends of the development of heterocyclic chemistry-introduction of fluorine atoms into the compounds. The uniqueness of the latter consists in its unusual activity: it increases solubility of organic molecules in fats, contributes to their penetration through cellular membranes and inhibits some specific enzymes. As a result, Ural chemists are leaders in creating antibiotics of fluoroquinolone series on the basis of fluorine-containing compounds. The antibacterial preparation Pefloxacin worked out by them, is authorized for medical use and is produced serially. According to statistics, more than 20 percent of preparations, produced today, have a heterocyclic structure containing fluorine atoms. One more achievement of local specialists-asymmetric synthesis of Levofloxacin. This method has been patented in Japan, South Korea and in a number of other countries.

M. Bychkova, "The Chemistry of Heterocycles: New Materials and Preparations", "Nauka Urala" newspaper, No. 4-5, 2012