Belarusian Satellite Center of the UNESCO Institute for Microanalysis

The Belarusian Satellite Center uses in its activities the personnel and technical capabilities of the Institute of Biophysics and Cell Engineering of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. The Institute of Biophysics and Cell Engineering (until June 15, 2004, the Institute of Photobiology of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus) belongs to the Biological Department of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, was established in 1973 to conduct research in the field of biophysics and biochemistry of plants and animals.

Since its inception, the Institute of Biophysics and Cell Engineering of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus has been one of the leading scientific institutions in the post-Soviet space, conducting extensive research in the field of photosynthesis, studying the dynamics of the structure of proteins and biological membranes under the action of biologically active compounds, mechanisms of intracellular signaling with the participation of secondary messengers, providing specific signal transmission paths. At that time, special attention was paid to the study of the chemical composition of pigments and other important components of animal and plant cells using radioisotopes. Using biophysical and biochemical approaches, the Institute has developed a number of diagnostic methods for various diseases.

In recent years, the Institute has been actively conducting research to elucidate the mechanisms of action on the human body of toxic and potentially toxic microelements, the entry of which into the environment is caused by natural and anthropogenic processes.

With the help of various modern approaches of bioelemetology, individual forms of metals are studied, their concentration and, therefore, distribution in a particular biological object is determined, and biologically important processes involving metal compounds are studied and their possible physiological functions are predicted. Interest in the role of ions of various metals in providing various functions of the body led to the development of such a new direction at the Institute as metallomics.

The multidisciplinary nature of the research carried out at the Institute, the technical equipment and the experience of the personnel accumulated over the past three decades, make it possible to solve, within the framework of the Belarusian Satellite Center of the UNESCO Institute of Microchemistry, complex problems of determining trace amounts of substances in research related to assessing the quality of food products and the state of public health.