About us

The Department of Histology, Cytology and Embryology at Kharkiv national medical university was founded in April 1867, when the Histology Unit, opened at the Medical Faculty of the Kharkiv imperial university in autumn 1866, was trasformed to the Histology department.
The founder of the Department of Histology was professor, doctor of medicine Nicanor Khrzhonshchevskyi, who made a major contribution to the study of adrenal morphology.
Over the years, the Department was headed by prof. K. Kuchin, prof. M. Kulchitsky, privat-docent M. Kashchenko, prof. P. Polyakov, prof. V. Rubashkin, prof. N. Chasovnikov.
From 1937 to 1974 the department was headed by an outstanding histologist, honoured worker of science and technology, laureate of the Ukrainian SSR state prize, Doctor of Biological Sciences, professor Alyoshin Boris.
Alyoshin investigated important theoretical problems of modern neuroendocrinology. He has been concerned with issues of hypothalamic regulation of adenohypophyseal hormonopoiesis. The results of his research were published in his monograph “Histophysiology of hypothalamic-pituitary system” (1971). B. Alyoshin took an active part in creation of the chapter “Endocrine system” of the textbook on Histology for students of medical high schools, which was edited by V. Eliseiev in 1963 and was repeatedly republished. B. Alyoshin supervised 19 doctoral theses and 68 candidate theses.
From 1976 to 1995, the department was headed by Doctor of Medical Sciences, professor Evgeny Pankov, who made a great contribution to the doctrine of reparative bone regeneration. He studied problems of fracture healing and osteosynthesis modelling. He published over 300 scientific papers and trained 21 candidates and 4 doctors of medicine.
From 1996 to 2014, the Department was headed by an outstanding neuromorphologist, Doctor of Medical Sciences, professor Sergey Maslovsky. S. Maslovsky focused his scientific interests on studying the structure of brain structures at the macromicroscopic level.
Since 2014, the department has been headed by Doctor of Medical Sciences, professor Olexandr Stepanenko.

The personal staff of the department of Histology, Cytology and Embryology of KNMU consists of 29 persons, 22 of them are teaching staff. The department has established a quality educational process, including a distance learning format, which meets all the requirements of the world level of teaching the discipline. During the lectures, the students receive up-to-date information about the peculiarities of the structure and functions of human cells, tissues and organs. During practical classes students have the opportunity to master practical skills, working with a light microscope, as well as to work through theoretical material with the help of a variety of illustrative material.
Currently five dissertation research works are being carried out at the department under the supervision of professor O. Stepanenko. Scientists of the department were the first in Ukraine to introduce the method of fractal analysis of the structure of various anatomical structures, which gives a clear idea of the peculiarities and regularities of their spatial organization.
The personal staff of the department is constantly improving their pedagogical level by getting involved in the acquiring of the second master’s degree in Pedagogy of Higher Education, as well as in various advanced training courses for acquisition of pedagogical skills on the basis of KNMU, KNPhU and other higher education institutions.

The disciplines taught by the department teaching staff include “Histology, cytology and embryology”, and “Histology, cytology and embryology with features of childhood”.
The department trains students in educational and educational programs: “Medicine”, “Pediatrics”, “Dentistry” of the second master level; “Laboratory Diagnostics” of the first (bachelor) level.
The following selective educational components (disciplines) are taught at the department: “Child from embryo to adolescent” and “Improvement of knowledge in anatomy, medical biology, histology as preparation for the certification of eater”.
The department trains scientific personnel in the educational-scientific program “Doctor of Philosophy”, specialty “Medicine”.

The scientific interests of the department are related with the study of the structure and individual anatomical variability of the structures of the nervous and other systems at different levels of their organization, as well as the development of new and improvement of existing methods of morphological research.
Since 2014, the personal staff of the department has defended 1 doctoral thesis, 4 candidate theses and 1 dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 5 dissertations for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and 1 dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Sciences are now in progress.
Since 2014, 3 patents for invention and 14 patents for utility model, 3 copyright certificates were received by the personal staff of the department. The results of scientific research have been published in over 100 articles, including domestic and foreign periodicals indexed by Scopus and Web of Science databases.
The department of Histology, Cytology and Embryology regularly, several times a year, arranges scientific-practical and scientific-referential conferences for students and young scientists.

The teaching staff of the department constantly present the results of their research at various international scientific and practical conferences. The coworkers of the department are permanent members of international scientific organizations such as International Federation of Anatomists Association (IFAA) and European Federation of Experimental Morphology (EFEM).
The teachers of the Department constantly improve their pedagogical skills at the cycles of professional development in the leading universities of Krakow, Lublin, Warsaw.