Platon Kostiuk
Platon Hryhorovych Kostyuk () (20 August 1924 – 10 May 2010) was a Ukrainian physiologist, neurobiologist, electrophysiologist, and biophysicist. He was a member (academician) of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of Ukraine and the Russian Academy of Sciences. He was also a director of the Bogomoletz Institute of Physiology and the International Center of Molecular Physiology NAS of Ukraine; chair of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Kyiv branch, vice-president of the NAS of Ukraine, and chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR. Biography. Platon Kostyuk was born in Kyiv to the family of the  Ukrainian psychologist Hryhoriy Kostyuk. A native speaker of both Ukrainian and Russian, Kostyuk studied English and German, and graduated from high school when the German–Russian War began in 1941. Kostyuk entered Stalingrad University to study biology and Roman philology. He was later evacuated to Siberia where he studied medicine till 1945. After half a year of military medical service, he was demobilized for entry into the Department of Biology at Kyiv University. In parallel he studied psychiatry at Kyiv Medical Institute. Kostyuk worked on his doctoral thesis in Danylo Vorontsov's laboratory of physiology. In his research, he developed  microelectrode equipment independently of Judith Graham Pool and Ralph W. Gerard (1949). He completed his doctoral thesis in 1957. In 1958, Kostyuk became Head of the Department of General Nervous System Physiology at the Bogomoletz Institute of Physiology. From 1969 to 2010, he served as the director of the institute. In 1960–61, Kostyuk was invited to John Eccles' Laboratory in Canberra, Australia to study the mechanisms of synaptic inhibition in the spinal cord. In 1974, he was elected a member (academician) of the Soviet Academy of Science. In 1975–1988, he was the academician-secretary of the Section of Physiology of  the academy. In 1975–1990, he was also a deputy in the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR and in 1985–90 was its chairman. Research. Platon Kostiuk was the first to introduce microelectrode studies of the nervous system in the USSR. He was the first to prove directly the presence of calcium channels in neuronal cell membranes. Under his supervision, two types of calcium currents were discovered: high-voltage activated and low-voltage activated. He also proposed an original hypothesis on calcium channels' selectivity mechanism. Awards and chairs. Kostiuk was a vice-president of the International Union for Physiologycal Sciences from  1989–1993. In 1966 he was elected a Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. In memoriam. Kostiuk students established Kostyuk Foundation to support young scientists and promote physiological research in Ukraine. Once a year Foundation presents Kostyuk Award to outstanding young researchers in field of biomedical sciences. Publications. He published more than 1000 scientific papers in Ukrainian, Russian, and English. Some of the most important include: