In memoriam: A. M. Shkrob (1936 — 2007)

Как долго помнят о тех, кто никому не известен при жизни? Что значит — никому?

А. М. Шкроб, «Счастливые дни»

How long do they remember those who are known to no one during their lifetime? And what does it mean — “no one”?

A.M. Shkrob, Happy Days

What prompted me to look up his name after all these years, I can’t tell now. The top hit Mr Google brought me was an article in Russian Wikipedia from which I learned that the subject of my search, Alexander Moiseyevich Shkrob (Александр Моисеевич Шкроб), Ph.D., died almost 15 years ago, on 28 September 2007, under suspicious circumstances. At the same time, the article was marked for deletion. It was noted in the discussion that A.M. Shkrob does not satisfy Wikipedia’s notability criteria for scientists. What?

I felt compelled to fix this. One of such criteria is peer-reviewed publications in “leading research journals”, wherever they are supposed to “lead”. To compile a list of A.M.’s scientific papers was relatively straightforward. Far from being complete, it nevertheless gives an idea how broad his research interests were. I also included there the monograph «Мембрано-активные комплексоны» [3] which Shkrob coauthored with Yuri Ovchinnikov and Vadim Ivanov. (I used to have a physical copy of this book which I bought second-hand in the 1980s.) I’ve added the bibliography to the Wikipedia article; you can see it at the end of this post, just in case they mutilate or delete it.

While doing this, I found out something unexpected. In 1997, A.M. created the web site called Vivos voco!^* that is still online. Which in itself is a miracle, considering that it is a free — in many senses of this word, including advertisement-free — library. (For how long now, considering what is happening with the Internet in my fatherland?) Browsing this refreshingly simple, very 1990s-style site, I discovered the papers that A.M. wrote for popular science journals such as «Знание — сила» (Scientia potentia est) and «Химия и жизнь» (Chemistry and Life) in the ’80s and ’90s. I didn’t know this side of him — well, turns out I didn’t know many sides of him.

* * *

I first met A.M. in 1986. We happened to share the same lab space. For me, a third-year student just starting my first research-y project, he was an oldster; also, kind of a mad scientist. One afternoon he walked in the lab swirling some yellowish liquid in a small round-bottom flask and asked, “What do you think it is?” He had this manner to address everybody and nobody in particular at once. At that moment, I was the only other person present, so I assumed the question was directed to me.
“I’ve no idea”, I confessed.
“It’s veratryl alcohol,” he beamed. “Isn’t it great?”
“If you say so”, I wanted to respond but chose a nod instead. I used to be a polite boy.

Perhaps he felt I didn’t share his enthusiasm, so he left the room; I heard him attacking somebody else in the corridor with the same question.

A few years later, by then thoroughly forgotten (by me) veratryl alcohol would fall into place when A.M. gave a (brilliant) lecture on lignin and lignin peroxidase.

Pretty soon I moved to a different building. We kept overlapping now and then, for example, during the departmental seminars, but we never really worked together. I’ll never know if I missed much. I had an impression that A.M. was not the easiest person to work with. I can’t forget the hammering Shkrob, as a referee, gave to my former colleague during the latter’s Ph.D. pre-defence, to the degree that the poor guy had to completely rewrite his thesis and hold yet another pre-defence.

The things A.M. used to say could be illuminating, or funny, or irritating, or even arrogant, but never boring. His knowledge — of science, history, literature — was astounding. I wish I had listened more. I wish I asked him at least some questions. As it was, I didn’t.

I remember him mentioning an episode from his youth that he would include later in «Ничего особенного» (Nothing Special). At the end of the high school, in 1952, A.M. was advised^† to continue his education in the Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology rather than, as he aspired, Moscow State University. He didn’t have to explain why he got that advice: at the height of the infamous anti-cosmopolitan campaign, it was next to impossible for Jews to enter the MSU. “Oh, I was walking home and crying”, he was reminiscing. “To my surprise, my mum was not upset at all. On the contrary. ‘What brilliant advice’, she said. ‘Do as you are told’. I did as I was told, and entered the Mendeleev’s without any trouble.”

A.M. was a self-confessed workaholic. Another thing is that he probably was not so sure about the direction of his work. Once he told me that he dedicated all his summer holidays to crack the internal language of Multi-Edit and wrote some sort of bibliographic database using that language. (Come on, give me a break, I thought to myself.) Back then, access to a personal computer was still a luxury. We had a number of XTs, ATs and even one i386 machine at the department but nobody had a PC at home. I was impressed, not with his software (which I never saw) but with the fact that he spent all summer at work. Not a small feat, considering that our department was situated just above a morgue. Alas, most likely the only user of that database was Shkrob himself.

In spite of, or maybe exactly thanks to, such workaholism, there was little recognition. I would imagine a scientist of his caliber leading a lab, or at the very least a research group, or being a professor at the university, or something. Reading his articles now, I understand that Shkrob, while being passionate about science, was indifferent to his career in science. Moreover, I think he was perfectly happy to be where he was, resisting promotions which would inevitably take away his freedom to actually do science. In the ’70s and ’80s, many Soviet research institutions provided safe harbours for intelligentsia’s “internal emigration”; the demise of the Soviet system heralded the end of these sanctuaries. From the ’90s on, it was not enough to work: the scientists were supposed to earn money. The era of state-sponsored curiosity was over. This could be one of the (many) reasons why A.M. did not appear to be ecstatic about catastroika^‡.

* * *

If there was one thing that I took in from A.M., it was this one: “The model shouldn’t be as complex as the real object”. I probably have to explain that this comment was made 30+ years ago in the context of molecular modelling of proteins. A.M. expanded on it later in The science of the black box [40]. It matters not that the hardware and software we used then would make you smile condescendingly. All the (undeniable) progress notwithstanding, the protein folding problem remains unsolved. At the time, however, Shkrob’s maxim did strike me as a general rule to follow, in both science and life.

Неужели и после меня останутся только оттиски забытых статей да папки с программами для допотопных машин — странные тексты, в которых запрятаны уже мне самому непонятные озарения.

«Счастливые дни»

Could it be that all that remains after me are reprints of long-forgotten articles and folders with programmes for antediluvian computers — strange texts that hide epiphanies already incomprehensible even to myself.

Happy Days

I believe that the legacy of A.M. is bigger than that. However, right now, for me, it is confined to what can be found on the web and to my own memory. In his 1992—1994 memoir Happy Days Shkrob promised to write about his grandfather, his mother and his uncle “in detail and without haste, if there’s time left”. Did he? I hope he did, and they’ll see the light of day eventually. In the meanwhile, I keep on reading.

__________________________________________________

*	The phrase “Vivos voco” («Зову живых» in Russian) was the motto of «Колокол» (Kolokol), the first Russian censorship-free weekly newspaper in Russian and French languages, published by Alexander Herzen and Nikolay Ogarev between 1857 and 1867. The motto comes from the Latin epigraph to Schiller’s Das Lied von der Glocke (Song of the Bell): “Vivos voco. Mortuos plango. Fulgura frango”.
†	By Dr. Emilia Georgievna Perevalova (1922—2012), Soviet organometallic chemist, then head of chemical club at the Moscow State University.
‡	The word “catastroika” (катастройка), invented by Alexander Zinoviev in the 1980s, is a blend of “catastrophe” and “perestroika”.

References

Scientific works in Russian

1. Шкроб, А.М. (1964) Реакция оксиацильного включения в пептидные системы. Диссертация на соискание ученой степени кандидата химических наук. Москва, Институт химии природных соединений АН СССР.
2. Либерман, Е.А., Топалы, В.П., Цофина, Л.М., Шкроб, А.М. (1969) Перенос ионов йода через искусственные фосфолипидные мембраны. Биофизика XIV, 56—61.
3. Овчинников, Ю.А., Иванов, В.Т., Шкроб, А.М. (1974) Мембрано-активные комплексоны. Москва, Наука.
4. Сумская, Л.В., Чехляева, Н.М., Барсуков, Л.И., Терехов, О.П., Демин, В.В., Шкроб, А.М., Иванов, В.Т., Овчинников, Ю.А. (1976) Функциональные производные валиномицина и энниатина B как комплексоны и ионофоры. Биоорганическая химия 2, 351—364.
5. Шкроб, А.М., Родионов, А.В., Овчинников, Ю.А. (1978) Обратимый фотоиндуцированный гидролиз альдимина ретиналя в солюбилизированном бактериородопсине. Биоорганическая химия 4, 354—359.
6. Шкроб, А.М., Родионов, А.В. (1978) Щелочная денатурация бактериородопсина в пурпурных мембранах. Биоорганическая химия 4, 360—368.
7. Шкроб, А.М., Родионов, А.В. (1978) Множественность форм релаксирующих молекул бактериородопсина. Биоорганическая химия 4, 500—513.
8. Родионов, А.В., Шкроб, А.М. (1979) Гидролиз альдимина ретиналя в бактериородопсине, индуцированный ионами серебра. Биоорганическая химия 5, 376—394.
9. Овчинников, Ю.А., Шкроб, А.М., Родионов, А.В. (1980) Спектральный переход бактериородопсина как индикатор его состояния в пурпурных мембранах. Биоорганическая химия 6, 1483—1504.
10. Шкроб, А.М., Родионов, А.В., Овчинников, Ю.А. (1981) Ароматические аналоги бактериородопсина. Биоорганическая химия 7, 1169—1194.
11. Родионов, А.В., Баирамашвили, Д.И., Куделин, А.Б., Фейгина, М.Ю., Шкроб, А.М., Овчинников, Ю.А. (1981) Акцепторный остаток лизина при фотоиндуцированной миграции ретиналя в бактериородопсине. Биоорганическая химия 7, 1328—1334.
12. Шкроб, А.М., Левит, М.Н., Арчаков, А.И. (1989) Модельные подходы к изучению механизма действия лигниназы. Чем отличается лигниназа от других пероксидаз? Биоорганическая химия 15, 53—69.
13. Левит, М.Н., Шкроб, А.М. (1992) Лигнин и лигниназа. Биоорганическая химия 18, 309—345.
14. Шкроб, А.М. (1994) Реакция окси- и аминоацильного включения. Биоорганическая химия 20, 100—113.

Scientific works in English

15. Shemyakin, M.M., Antonov, V.K., Shkrob, A.M., Sheinker, Yu.N. and Senyavina, L.B. (1962) Cyclol formation in peptide systems. Tautomerism of N-(α-hydroxyacyl)-amides. Tetrahedron Letters 3, 701—707.
16. Antonov, V.K., Shkrob, A.M. and Shemyakin, M.M. (1963) Cyclol formation in peptide systems. III. Rearrangement of N-(β-hydroxypropionyl)-piperidone into a 10-membered cyclodepsipeptide. Tetrahedron Letters 4, 439—443.
17. Antonov, V.K., Shkrob, A.M., Shchelokov, V.I. and Shemyakin, M.M. (1963) Cyclol formation in peptide systems. IV. Hydroxy acid incorporation into peptides. Tetrahedron Letters 4, 1353—1360.
18. Shemyakin, M.M., Ovchinnikov, Yu.A., Antonov, V.K., Kiryushkin, A.A., Ivanov, V.T., Shchelokov, V.I. and Shkrob, A.M. (1964) Total synthesis of serratomolide. I. Synthesis of O,O′-diacetylserratamolide. Tetrahedron Letters 5, 47—54.
19. Shemyakin, M.M., Antonov, V.K., Shkrob, A.M., Shchelokov, V.I. and Agadzhanyan, Z.E. (1965) Activation of the amide group by acylation: Hydroxy- and aminoacyl incorporation in peptide systems. Tetrahedron 21, 3537—3572.
20. Shkrob, A.M., Krylova, Yu.I., Antonov, V.K. and Shemyakin, M.M. (1967) A new approach to the synthesis of stable derivatives of azacyclols. Tetrahedron Letters 8, 2701—2706.
21. Shemyakin, M.M., Ovchinnikov, Yu.A., Ivanov, V.T., Antonov, V.K., Shkrob, A.M., Mikhaleva, I.I., Evstratov, A.V. and Malenkov, G.G. (1967) The physicochemical basis of the functioning of biological membranes: Conformational specificity of the interaction of cyclodepsipeptides with membranes and of their complexation with alkali metal ions. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications 29, 834—841.
22. Liberman, E.A., Topaly, V.P., Tsofina, L.M. and Shkrob, A.M. (1969) Transfer of iodine ions across artificial phospholipid membranes. Biophysics 14, 55—61 [translation of 2].
23. Shemyakin, M.M., Ovchinnikov, Yu.A., Ivanov, V.T., Antonov, V.K., Vinogradova, E.I., Shkrob, A.M., Malenkov, G.G., Evstratov, A.V., Laine, I.A., Melnik, E.I. and Ryabova, I.D. (1969) Cyclodepsipeptides as chemical tools for studying ionic transport through membranes. The Journal of Membrane Biology 1, 402—430.
24. Ivanov, V.T. and Shkrob, A.M. (1970) The physicochemical basis of ion transport through biological membranes. Report of a Pre-symposium held in Riga, U.S.S.R. on June 19 and 20, 1970, within the scope of the VII. International Symposium on the Chemistry of Natural Products. FEBS Letters 10, 285—291.
25. Shkrob, A.M. and Mel’nik, E.I. (1972) Transfer of protons across bilayer lipid membranes in the presence of dibasic phenol. Dependence of the mechanism of conductivity on the pH of aqueous solution. Biophysics 17, 743—746.
26. Barsukov, L.I , Shkrob, A.M. and Bergel’son, L.D. (1972) Effect of anions on the permeability of the liposomes induced by valinomycin. Biophysics 17, 1083—1088.
27. Shkrob, A.M., Mel’nik, E.I., Terekhov, O.P. and Ovchinnikov, Yu.A. (1973) Use of valinomycin as a probe for investigating the properties of the membranes. I. Non monotonic change in the properties of bilayer membranes of bovine brain lipids with increase in the ionic strength of the bathing solutions. Biophysics 18, 691—697.
28. Demin, V.V., Babakov, A.V., Shkrob, A.M. and Ovchinnikov, Yu.A. (1974) Conductivity of bilayer lipid membranes in the presence of valinomycin and lipophilic anions. Biophysics 19, 675—680.
29. Ovchinnikov, Yu.A., Ivanov, V.T. and Shkrob, A.M. (1974) Membrane-active complexones. Elsevier, Amsterdam [translation of 3].
30. Ovchinnikov, Yu.A., Shkrob, A.M., Rodionov, A.V. and Mitzner, B.I. (1979) An effective competitive inhibitor of bacterioopsin-retinal recombination. FEBS Letters 97, 15—19.
31. Voznesensky, A.I., Galanova, J.V., Shkrob, A.M., Mathanov, I.E. and Archakov, A.I. (1990) Conjugation of bleomycin with concanavalin A or immunoglobulin G increases its ability to destroy cell membranes. Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics 283, 519—522.

Essays, memoirs, popular science (in Russian)

32. Шкроб, А.М. Первая книга Василия Петрова. Знание — сила, 1986, № 3, 39—41.
33. Шкроб, А.М. Не в службу... Знание — сила, 1994, № 8, 2—3.
34. Шкроб, А.М. Utility and progress. Знание — сила, 1995, № 12, 115—122.
35. Шкроб, А.М. Всему своё время.
    1. Цветной снимок. Химия и жизнь, 1995, № 9, 48—56.
    2. Воспитание чувств. Химия и жизнь, 1995, № 10—12, 62—70.
    3. Конгресс танцует. Химия и жизнь, 1996, № 1—3, 70—78.
    4. Осколки зеркала. Химия и жизнь, 1996, № 4—6, 40—48.
36. Шкроб, А.М. Время Шемякина. Знание — сила, 1996, № 2, 44—55.
37. Шкроб, А.М. Молекулы лечат: Двенадцать микробесед о лекарствах.
    • Часть I (1—4). Химия и жизнь — XXI век, 1998, № 1, 38—44.
    • Часть II (5—7). Химия и жизнь — XXI век, 1998, № 2, 40—46.
    • Часть III (8—12). Химия и жизнь — XXI век, 1998, № 3, 72—77.
38. Шкроб, А.М. Я не любитель, я другой... Компьютерра, 1998, № 252—253.
39. Шкроб, А.М. Tabulettae ex machina. Компьютерра, 2001, № 398.
40. Шкроб, А.М. Наука чёрного ящика. Домашний компьютер, 2001, № 9.
41. Шкроб, А.М. Интернет и образование. Электронные библиотеки, 2001, т. 4, № 6.
42. Шкроб, А.М. Статья о статьях. Природа 2007, № 11, 52—62.