On April 6, we commemorate Professor, Doctor of Medical Sciences Nataliia Yevhenivna Dumbrova (1939–2015) — an outstanding scientist, wise mentor, and person of great humanity, whose life was closely connected with the V.P. Filatov Institute of Eye Diseases and Tissue Therapy of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine.

After graduating in 1963 from the Odesa Medical Institute named after I. I. Pirogov, Nataliia Yevhenivna continued her scientific path in postgraduate studies at the O.O. Bogomolets Institute of Physiology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in the field of biophysics. Since 1968, her professional life became inseparably linked with the Filatov Institute of Eye Diseases and Tissue Therapy, where she began working as a junior researcher in the laboratory of pathophysiology.

It was at the  Institute that Nataliia Yevhenivna organized an electron microscopy group, which for many years served as an important scientific center for studying the ultrastructure of ocular tissues. She headed this group throughout her entire career at the Institute.

In 1969, she defended her PhD dissertation on the effects of radiation on the celiac plexus of rats. Later, her research focused on studying the structural mechanisms of the effects of physical factors on ocular tissues — ultrasound, electromagnetic fields, and laser radiation. The result of many years of research was her doctoral dissertation, defended in 1989, which comprehensively described intracellular compensatory and adaptive processes in corneal and retinal tissues.

Over 47 years of scientific activity, together with her colleagues, Nataliia Yevhenivna studied a wide range of ophthalmological problems:

• age-related and pathological changes in ocular tissues;
• experimental glaucoma and ocular hypertension;
• scleroplasty;
• effects of photocoagulation in melanoblastomas;
• influence of ionizing radiation on ocular tissues;
• dystrophic processes in the anterior and posterior segments of the eye;
• mechanisms of action of adaptogens;
• anti-glaucomatous effects of lasers;
• effects of high-frequency electro-welding on ocular tissues.

The results of her scientific work are impressive: 327 scientific publications, participation in the supervision of 14 doctoral and 17 PhD dissertations, invention proposals, patents, and 5 dissertations completed under her supervision.

Nataliia Yevhenivna was not only an outstanding scientist. She is remembered by colleagues and students as a wise mentor, an intelligent, exceptionally bright and sincere person who generously shared her knowledge, supported young researchers, and inspired new scientific achievements.

More about her scientific activity…

We remember. We honor. We continue the traditions of the Filatov School.