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University of Moscow organize a Laboratory of Metallo- 

 Organic Compounds in 1934. In 1935 he was made professor 

 at the University. At the same time, beginning in 1934, he 

 worked at the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the U.S.S.R. 

 Academy of Sciences where in 1935 he organized a Laboratory 

 of Metallo -Organic Compounds. He became Director of the 

 Institute in 1939. From 1948 to 1951 he was President of Mos- 

 cow University and was active in acquiring a new building. In 

 1953, Nesmeyanov helped found the Institute of Scientific Infor- 

 mation of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences. Through his initia- 

 tive, in 1954, an Institute of Organo- Elemental Compounds of 

 the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences was set up and he was made 

 the Director. Nesmeyanov has been active in social and politi- 

 cal work. He became a member of the Communist Party of the 

 Soviet Union in 1944 and was Deputy to the U.S.S.R. Supreme 

 Soviet. Also he was a member of the All-World Council for 

 Peace and the Soviet Committee in Defense of Peace. In 1939 

 Nesmeyanov was made a Corresponding Member, and in 1943 

 an Academician of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences. He was 

 elected President of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences in 1951. 

 Nesmeyanov is the leader of the Soviet school of metallo- 

 organic specialists. In 1943 he was a winner of a Stalin Prize. 



Nesmeyanov' s main scientific work is in chemistry of 

 metallo-organic compounds: lithium, boron, nitrogen, sodium, 

 magnesium, aluminum, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, selenium, 

 titanium, chromium, iron, copper, zinc, germanium, arsenic, 

 zirconium, molybdenum, cadmium, tin, antimony, tungsten, 

 mercury, thallium, lead, bismuth. In 1929 Nesmeyanov pro- 

 posed a diazo method of synthesis of mercury -organic com- 

 pounds, which he and his associates later used for synthesis of 

 metallo-organic compounds of thallium, tin, lead, germanium, 

 arsenic, antimony and bismuth. He also studied mutual trans- 

 formations of metallo-organic compounds, utilizing these re- 

 actions for synthesis of previously unknown types of metallo- 

 organic compounds of zinc, cadmium, aluminum, thallium, tin 

 and others from mercury -organic compounds. He proved that 

 products of addition of salts of non-transition metals to unsatu- 

 rated compounds are metallo-organic and not complex com- 

 pounds, discovered new classes of these compounds, and studied 

 their chemistry. Nesmeyanov also investigated unsaturated 

 metallo-organic compounds. He made a detailed study of the 

 steriochemistry of their mutual transformations. Through his 

 study of metallic derivatives of oxo-enol systems and alpha- 

 mercurated oxo- compounds, he showed the relation between the 



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