Cytology History,Education,scientific work,special courses

 HISTORY OF CYTOLOGY: 
The history of the chair originates from 1934, when Professor O.O. Ivakin has founded the Chair of Anatomy, Histology and Embryology at the Department of Biology of the Kyiv University. 
Since that time, the Chair trains specialists in morpho-physiology of higher animals by tradition. Teaching and research activities of the Chair had been drastically revised in the postwar years, when the Chair was headed by the prominent in morphology scientist, Professor B.G. Novikov. The Laboratory of the Evolutionary Morphology was formed then, and numerous contacts were established with the leading scientists in the world. 
In 1963 the basic required course in cytology was introduced, the required necessities for students to specialize in cytology were arranged for, and the Chair, in accordance with these events, obtained its modern name - the Chair of Cytology, Histology and Developmental Biology. Since 1981 the Chair was under the leadership of Professor V.M. Gordienko, doctor of medical sciences, laureate of the State Prize of Ukraine, and from 1997 till present the former graduate of the Chair, Professor M.E. Dzerzhynsky, occupies the position of the head of the Chair.
EDUCATION :
Teaching mission of the faculty members is targeted on the training of specialists with the highest degree of professional qualification, which corresponds to all modern requirements combined with the home traditions of theoretical and experimental morphology. 
Education of the specialists is accomplished in three stages:
Bachelor, 
Specialist, 
Master. 
According to the educational schedule, students acquire contemporary theoretical background in a number of basic and major required courses, attend major electives, special and laboratory practice, where they get knowledge in special topics of modern research, have teaching and research practice. Students take an active part in the research activities of the Chair, make reports on results of their own investigations at conferences, symposiums, and publish them on the pages of specialized scientific periodicals. Solid background in the major provides graduates of the Chair an advantage in the competition along with the possibility to get a position in research or clinical laboratories, or in the educational network.
Scientific work:
In the past decades the main scientific task of the Chair was to investigate how breeding, growth and periodical forming processes are regulated in vertebrates. Researchers and faculty were able to widen significantly the understanding of brain structures involvement into endocrine interactions, to determine the general scheme of the endocrine system organization, to point out the role of pituitary gland, hypothalamic and suprahypothalamic structures of brain in the regulation of the endocrine gland functions. Results of the scientific research performed by the staff members are reflected in numerous scientific publications, they were presented at various home and international meetings and also found a practical implementation in the development of modern technologies in regulation of animal breeding.

Now a days the Chair is the leading center in Ukraine for training highly qualified specialists in morphology, researchers of microscopic structure and functions of living organisms. There are no academic or affiliated research and development institute with the biological profile, no clinical lab, where cytologists, histologists or developmental biologists graduated from our chair are not working.

Special courses:

Courses in special topics:

• methods of investigation of cells,
• cell culture and cell engineering,
• basics of scientific research, 
• special histology,
• hematology, 
• tissues of internal environment, 
• neural system, 
• membranology, 
• selected chapters of embryology, 
• cell pathology, 
• selected chapters of cytology, 
• basics of teratology,
• intercellular interactions, 
• cytosceletone, 
• chronobiology.

cytology also known as cell biology

 CELL-BI0LOGY:CYTOLOGY

 (formerly cytology, from the Greek word kyots, "container") is a scientific discipline that studied cells their physiological  properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their life cycle,division and death.This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level. cell  biology research encompasses both the great diversity of single-celled organisms like bacteria and protozoa, as well as the many specialized cells in multi-cellular organism such as humans.

Knowing the components of cells and how cells work is fundamental to all biological sciences. Appreciating the similarities and differences between cell types is particularly important to the fields of cell and molecular biology as well as to biomedical fields such as cancer research and developmental biology. These fundamental similarities and differences provide a unifying theme, sometimes allowing the principles learned from studying one cell type to be extrapolated and generalizeTd to other cell types. Therefore, research in cell biology is closely related to genetics,biochemistry,molecular biology,immunology and developmental biology.

BASICS OF CYTOLOGY:

1. Every organism consists of cells. These possess, normally, a cell wall, a colourless semi-liquid material cytoplasm, and a nucleus, both the latter constituting the protoplasm or living substance. In addition. the cell may include plastids, which often bear pigments, e.g., chloroplasts. These are embedded in the cytoplasm. The cytoplasm contains immense numbers of minute granules of substances formed by it and also larger units, rod-like or granular, called mitochondria. In the cytoplasm are usually spaces, the vacuoles, empty in appearance but filled with cell-sap. They may coalesce into a single large vacuole filling the central part of the cell.
   2. The nucleus consists of a nuclear membrane, enclosing a limpid, semi-solid material, the karyolymph. In this is suspended a hollow reticulum composed of chromatin. In this network are numerous knots or lumps of heterochromatin. Attached to the reticulum are one, or some­times two, nucleoli which differ from the chromatin in composition.
   3. Cell division is preceded by nuclear division or mitosis. The reticulum is resolved into a number of separate threads, whose number is fixed and characteristic for each species. These threads thicken and are called chromosomes. Each of them has a distinctive shape or size. They split lengthways, and the portions or chromatids separate and move to opposite ends of the cell, where they reconstitute two daughter nuclei. The chromosomes are drawn apart by two sets of cytoplasmic fibrils called the spindle fibres, which appear only during nuclear division. The nucleolus and the nuclear membrane disappear in the early stages of division and are reformed at its conclusion. Between the daughter nuclei a cell plate is formed, which becomes a new cell wall.
 4. Sexual reproduction consists essentially of the union of two nuclei, one from each of the parents. Thus after fusion the nucleus contains two sets of chromosomes, each pair of the same type forming what is called an homologous pair. As this would inevitably lead to a progressive doubling in the number of chromosomes, from generation to generation, there is a periodic halving or meiosis of the chromosome number. The sexual nuclei have always the half number (monoploid), and their union re-establishes the double number (diploid). 

5. The special reduction division or meiosis does not always occur at the same point in the life-cycles of different organisms, but it is always associated with the formation of some type of reproductive cell, either sexual or non-sexual. Even in the latter case, which is common in plants, it may be regarded as a preparation for eventual conjugation. The process of reduction division involves two immediately successive nuclear divisions, resulting in the formation of a quartet of cells. In the first division (heterotypic) the chromosomes of homologous pairs unite together and then disjoin, each chromosome being then separated to form part of a daughter nucleus. In other words, at this stage whole chromosomes are segregated instead of halves as in mitosis. The two daughter nuclei thus contain half the number of whole chromosomes. In the second division (homotypic) each of these chromosomes splits, as in mitosis, followed by separation as before. The final result is four nuclei each with the reduced number of chromosomes.