Norair Sisakian

Who was Norair Sisakian?

Norair Martirosovich Sisakian was a Soviet Armenian biochemist, academic, one of the founders of space biology, an outstanding organizer of science, a member of the Pugwash movement. He was a Member of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, a member of the Armenian Academy of Sciences, the Vice-President of the International Academy of Astronautics, the Chairman of the Committee on Bioastronautics of the International Astronautics Federation. State Prize of the USSR in 1952. In 1964 he was unanimously elected as a President of the 21st session of the UNESCO General Conference.

Sisakian finished the Yerevan State University and then the Moscow Agricultural Academy in 1932. From 1935 he worked in the Moscow Institute of biochemics after A. N. Bach. Professor of the Moscow State University. During his life Sisakian created fourteen laboratories and the Puschin center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

He is well known for his concept on chloroplasts as poly-functional cell structures. He greatly contributed to the Soviet space program.

A crater on the Far side of the Moon was named in his honor. In 2001 the "Academician Norair Martirosovich Sissakian" book was released by the Russian publishing house "Nauka". A school and a prospect in Yerevan are named after him. A museum of Sisakian was opened in his hometown Ashtarak, Armenia.