Under the February 20, 1959, Resolution of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Institute for Chemistry of Natural Products was founded within the Academy’s Chemical Sciences Division. The institution would go on to play an important part in the development of Russian physical and chemical biology. The founding of the Institute was brought about by the rapid developments in the chemistry of bioactive compounds, the natural products among them, and reflected the growing importance of this field in understanding the mechanisms of biological processes and in development of new medicinal preparations.