History

The Institute was established in 1983 in accordance with the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR №807 “On further development of new areas of biology and biotechnology”, the decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR № 121 from 24.01.1983, the resolution of  Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR № 83 from 22.02.1983 and the resolution of the Presidium of the Academy of sciences of the Kazakh SSR № 40 from 17.03.1983 for the development of modern biology directon in Kazakhstan.

The Institute is a founder of molecular biology in Kazakhstan (1968), bioengineering – genetic and cellular engineering (1986), molecular genetics (1989) and molecular medicine (1990), space biology and biotechnology (1991), molecular immunology (1997), ethno-and paleogenomics (1999), molecular algology and plastic engineering (2015).

The founder and the first Director of the Institute was a talented scientist and organizer of science, President of the Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences — Murat Abenovich Aitkhozhin. In 1968 he founded the first laboratory of molecular biology in Kazakhstan – protein and nucleic acids. Murat Aitkhozhin was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1976 for a new class of intracellular particles – informosomes discovery.  

From 1988 to 2019, the Institute was headed by Nagima Abenovna Aitkhozhina –Academician of the National Academy of Science of RK, due to her innovative working methods and the Institute’s staff scientific research results there was a leading research center on molecular biology and genetics, molecular medicine and immunology, biochemistry and biotechnology was formed in Kazakhstan.

Since February 2019, the Institute has been headed by Professor, Doctor of biological sciences – Sharipov Kamalidin Orynbaevich.