Georgi D. Efremov (8 December 1932 – 6 May 2011) was a Macedonian

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

and

scientist A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...

at the

Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts () is an academic institution in North Macedonia. History The Academy of Sciences and Arts was established by the Socialist Republic of Macedonia's assembly on 23 February 1967 as the highest scientifi ...

, Skopje, Macedonia, and a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

in the Faculty of Agricultural Science and Food in Skopje. He was specialized in genetic engineering in human medicine, veterinary medicine, and animal biotechnology. He was a former Ambassador and Minister of Science in the Republic of Macedonia. Efremov was born in the small town of Kratovo,

Republic of Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

, one of the oldest towns in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

on December 8, 1932. His father was a merchant wholesalesman, one of the wealthiest men in the town, until 1945, when the new communist regime of the former

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

confiscated all of his property. His parents taught their children that education was the only way to a better life. He started his higher education at the

University of Zagreb The University of Zagreb (, ) is a public university, public research university in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the largest Croatian university and one of the oldest continuously operating universities in Europe. The University of Zagreb and the Unive ...

, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Croatia. In 1956 he graduated, and during the next two years he served as a veterinarian, later enrolling at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Faculty of Medicine in Macedonia. After he finished his studies there, he was appointed as junior assistant in physiology of domestic animals at the Faculty of Agriculture and Food in Skopje. In 1960, he specialized with a Master of Science in physiology and biochemistry at the

University of Belgrade The University of Belgrade () is a public university, public research university in Belgrade, Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it me ...

with help from his mentor, Professor Bozidar Nikolic. After his master's studies, Efremov defended his doctoral thesis, titled "Fetal and Adult Animal Hemoglobins," in September 1963 at the University of Belgrade. After his Ph.D. dissertation he began work as a professor at the Department of Internal Medicine, Veterinary College of Norway in Oslo, which was headed by Professor Mikael Braed. Two years later he was invited by Professor Titus H.J. Huisman to join his group at the Medical College of Georgia (Augusta, Georgia, USA), which was studying the structure, function, synthesis, and expression of normal and abnormal human hemoglobin. After he returned from the United States two years later, he was appointed to a position at the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, where he founded the Research Laboratory for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, and where he also served as director."biomedexperts"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Efremov, Georgi 2011 deaths Macedonian scientists Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje alumni University of Belgrade Faculty of Physics alumni Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb alumni Members of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts 1932 births People from Kratovo, North Macedonia Macedonian expatriates in Norway Macedonian expatriates in the United States