On August 1, 2020, head of the Plant Physiology Institute of RAS, head researcher of the Institute of Fundamental Problems of Biology, head of international laboratory Bionanotechnology of IMBB, doctor of biological sciences Suleyman Allakhverdiyev turns 70 years old.

S.Allakhverdiyev was born in Chaykend, Armenia on August 1, 1950. In 1973 he graduated from the physics faculty of the Azerbaijan State University named after S.M. Kirov (currently Baku State University). In 1973-1977 he worked as a physics teacher in Chaykend secondary school. In 1977, he entered the postgraduate study of the Institute of Photosynthesis of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now the Institute of Fundamental Problems of Biology, REA). In 1984 he defended a dissertation on biophysics in the Institute of Biophysics of the USSR Academy of Sciences and he received a Ph.D. in physics and mathematics. After defending dissertation S.Allakhverdiyev started to work at the Institute of Photosynthesis of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 2002 he defended successfully his dissertation on “Physiology and biochemistry of the plants” for the degree of Doctor of Sciences.

S.Allakhverdiyev is a well-known scientist in the fields of photosynthesis, physiology, biophysics, biochemistry, and molecular biology. The primary mechanisms that underlie the activity of the 2nd photosystem (FS-2) in the electron transport chain, the proposed energy and kinetic displacement scheme of electrons during photosynthesis, are included in textbooks on photosynthesis worldwide.

The results of S.Allakhverdiyev's scientific researches are regularly published in prestigious journals such as "Chemical Reviewers", "Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA", "The EMBO Journal", "Journal of Photochemical and Photobiology", "Photosynthesis Research", "FEBS Letters" and others.

S.Allakhverdiyev is the author of leading international journals on plant physiology and biochemistry, photosynthesis and nanotechnology, including Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA-Bioenergetics), and he is a member of the editorial board of “International Journal of Hydrogen Energy”, “Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology ”,“ Frontiers in Plant Physiology ”and others. He is also a member of two specialized councils for the defense of doctoral dissertations. Under the leadership of S.Allakhverdiyev, 2 doctors of sciences and 6 candidates of sciences were prepared.

S.Allakhverdiyev is an author of more than 350 articles, 6 inventions, and 8 books. He worked as an invited professor in more than 25 countries (Australia, France, The Netherland, Germany, Singapore, Sweden, Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey, India and so on.), and he read lectures in more than 40 countries.

In the annual report published by Clarivate Analytics at the end of 2019, S. Allakhverdiyev was among the most cited scientists in the list of "Highly Cited Researchers".

On behalf of the staff of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnologies, we sincerely congratulate Suleyman Allakhverdiyev on his 70th anniversary and wish him good health and new scientific successes.