Orekhov, Aleksandr

Born Nov. 7 (19), 1881, in Nizhny Novgorod, now Gorky; died Oct. 19, 1939, in Moscow. Soviet chemist; academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1939).

In 1905, Orekhov was expelled from the Ekaterinoslav Academy of Mines for his participation in the student movement. He emigrated to Germany, where he completed his studies at the University of Giessen (1908). He began working in Paris in 1918. In 1928, after returning to his native country, he became head of the department of alkaloid chemistry at the Scientific Research Chemical and Pharmaceutical Institute in Moscow.

Orekhov and his co-workers discovered and studied about 100 new alkaloids, including anabasine, which is used as an insecticide. Orekhov succeeded in developing and introducing new commercial methods of isolating ephedrine, salsoline, and anabasine, as well as the pharmaceuticals pachycarpine and platyphylline. His Alkaloid Chemistry (1938) was the first textbook on the subject to be published in the USSR. Orekhov also did research on intramolecular rearrangements.