Torgov, Igor Vladimirovich

Born Feb. 2 (15), 1912, in Kazan. Soviet chemist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1972).

Torgov graduated from Kazan Institute of Chemical Engineering in 1937, and until 1939 he worked in a factory laboratory. From 1939 to 1959 he was at the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, where he became a senior scientific worker in 1948. From 1941 to 1944 he served in the Soviet Army. In 1959 he became the head of the steroid chemistry laboratory of the Institute of the Chemistry of Natural Compounds of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (now the M. M. Shemiakin Institute of Bio-Organic Chemistry). Torgov’s main works are on the chemistry of natural compounds, mainly steroids. He discovered the reaction of the condensation of vinyl carbinols with β-diketones (Torgov synthesis); this became the basis of the original method of obtaining steroids in industry (the production of estrogen and anabolic hormones).

Torgov has been awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, as well as several medals.