Alexander Antonovich Milyutin was appointed Rector of the International Institute of Radioecology by the order of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus on March 19, 1998. Prior to that time, he held the position of Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs at our Institute. On September 10, 1997, Milyutin Aleksander Antonovich replaced Alexander Mikhailovich Lyutsko, who had passed away, as the head of the Sakharov University.
The authority of Alexander Antonovich Milyutin as a leader and scientific figure, his irrepressible creative energy, a close-knit team of like-minded people allowed the institute to make a leap in its development. It has undergone significant changes in educational and scientific activities. In 1998, the Eurasian branch of the Institute was opened in Almaty; the Faculty of Advanced Training and Retraining of personnel was established at the Institute itself; on the basis of the Department of Radioecology, the Faculty of Radioecology was created, on the basis of the Department of Radiobiology and Environmental Medicine, the Faculty of Radiobiology and Environmental Medicine was created; the Faculty of Advanced Training and Retraining of Personnel included the Republican Scientific, Educational and Information Center on Problems of Radiation Safety, Energy and Radioecological Education, from that moment it became known as the Faculty of Advanced Training and Retraining of Personnel in the field of Radioecology and radiation Safety. In 1999, the Institute opened a Representative Office of the International Ecological (Noosphere) University (Kislovodsk, Russian Federation). And in the same year, the Institute opened the department of educational resources, which included the department of technical training tools, the laboratory of new educational technologies, the library and the information and publishing department. In order to increase the effectiveness of the work on informing and educating the population of the Republic of Belarus in the field of radiation and environmental safety, the Institute has opened a laboratory for informing and educating the population in the field of radiation and environmental safety. According to the order of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus of June 30, 1999, the International Radioecology Institute named after A.D.Sakharov was transformed into the International University of Radioecology. The only environmental university in the Republic of Belarus has taken a worthy place in the higher education system of the republic. Its development went on a new spiral.
In 2000, a Center for Renewable Energy Sources was established at the university, on the basis of the Volmyan camp site (Dzerzhinsk district, Minsk region). In 2002, the faculties underwent another renaming: the Faculty of Radioecology was renamed the Faculty of Environmental Monitoring, and the Faculty of Radiobiology and Environmental Medicine was renamed the Faculty of Environmental Medicine. So the faculties are called to this day. In 2000, the University opened a master’s degree program, which is why the Department of Postgraduate Studies was renamed the Department of Postgraduate and Master’s Studies. In 2002, the IAEA regional courses on radiation protection and safety of radiation sources began to work at the University, and since then they have been held at the University on a permanent basis with a regularity every two years. Their holding was a very significant event for the Republic of Belarus, which further confirmed the status of our University at the international level.
Milyutin’s research interests include molecular radiobiology, membrane biochemistry and biophysics, molecular endocrinology, and molecular epidemiology. Together with his colleagues, he discovered for the first time that the process of aging of the body, the state of oxidative stress and pathology of various etiologies is accompanied by the accumulation of phospholipid lysoforms in biological membranes. Subsequently, this was confirmed in laboratories in the USA, Japan, and England. In 1979, A. A. Milyutin and simultaneously I. Zs. Nagy (USA) proposed the membrane hypothesis of the aging process. In the first weeks after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, he went on scientific expeditions to the areas of radioactive contamination. Until 1994, he was the head of experimental work at the Institute of Radiobiology of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. At this time, Alexander Antonovich developed models of external and internal irradiation of experimental animals, which are currently accepted in all radiobiological laboratories. He proposed the membrane hypothesis of different radiosensitivity of cells with different functional specialization. He created a scientific school for the research and testing of a number of biologically active substances as molecular markers of physiological and pathological conditions of the body under the influence of ionizing radiation and environmental factors. Together with the staff of the Faculty of Environmental Medicine, he developed and justified the creation of new specialities: “Radiobiology and Radiation Medicine” (1995), “Biomedical Science” (2001), “Medical Ecology” (2001) for training specialists in the field of pathobiology, molecular epidemiology and laboratory medicine.
Alexander Antonovich taught natural science courses “Molecular and Cellular Radiobiology”, “Molecular Medicine” and provided scientific guidance to graduate students. Under his leadership, 4 PhD theses were defended. He was the author of more than 150 scientific papers, 2 inventions, 3 monographs. He was a member of the International Radiobiological Society, the International Biorheological Society, the International Nuclear Society, an academician of the International Academy of Ecology, a full member of the World Academy of Medicine, an honorary member of the Polish Academy of Medicine, a laureate of the Golden Star. Schweitzer, winner of the A. G. Nebolsin Prize.
On October 14, 2002, the life of Alexander Antonovich Milyutin ended prematurely.