Contribution of Alexander Nikolaevich Bazhanov (1934 – 2019) to the Development of Tissue Biology and Evolutionary Morphology

The aim of the article was to analyze the creative contribution of a prominent Soviet histologist, a representative of the Orenburg scientific histological school, Alexander Nikolaevich Bazhanov, to the development of fundamental problems of tissue biology and evolutionary morphology. His creative activity took place in the 60s - 90s of the twentieth century. The main scientific research of A.N. Bazhanov is devoted to the problems of embryonic histogenesis of the esophageal epithelium, issues of morphofunctional characteristics of the structures of the esophageal mucosa, tissue cultivation, and evolutionary dynamics of tissues. His comparative histological studies and work on tissue cultivation allowed him to suggest that the esophageal epithelium probably originates from the prechordal plate. The facts he obtained served as the basis for the assertion about the endodermal origin of the prechordal plate. The results of his work were a significant contribution to the development of the problems of the evolutionary direction in histology and contributed to the activation of the development of controversial problems of tissue biology. The scientific legacy of A.N. Bazhanov consists of about a hundred articles and three monographs, two of which were written in co authored [5, 6, 7]. The significance of A.N. Bazhanov's research for the progress of modern tissue biology was highly appreciated during the author's lifetime. These works have not lost their relevance even after several decades.