Sister Yulia

About

Iulia Sora entered the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chisinau in the autumn of 1954. When asked by Professor Iurie Lealicov, who interviewed the candidates for the department, why she chose this department, she explained that she had fallen in love with chemistry thanks to her teacher. At university, Iulia was involved in various campus activities and worked as editor of the faculty newspaper "Chemist". From her second year at university, she became a member of the student scientific society and engaged in research on compounds called heteropolyacids. In 1959, Sora successfully defended her master's thesis "Precipitation chromatography of heteropolyacids" and graduated with honors from the University of Chisinau. After completing her studies, Sister was assigned to the analytical chemistry laboratory headed by Professor Yuri Lyalikov. The laboratory was part of the Institute of Chemistry of the Moldavian branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which became the Academy of Sciences of Moldova in 1961. Working in this laboratory allowed the young chemist Sister to begin her research with new polarographic methods. To perform the analysis of organic compounds using alternating current (AC) polarography, Iulia built a polarograph with her own hands and obtained the first polarograms. Sister was the first in Moldova (together with YS Lyalikov) to apply the methods of AC polarography and second harmonic AC polarography for the analysis of organic compounds. Then, together with physicist Vil Senkevich, they assembled an automatic device, and only later did the mass production of polarographs begin in the USSR. In the early 1960s, Iulia published her first research papers. In 1967, she obtained her doctorate from the Institute of Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova. Throughout 25 years of research at the Institute of Chemistry, Yulia Sister has addressed a wide range of topics. Her ecology-oriented research included the analysis of pesticides in environmental samples, food products, and biological media. She participated in the research and analysis of suspensions and was involved in the analysis of new organic compounds. Sister made a substantial contribution to the development of methods such as AC polarography with secondary harmonic, differential polarography with magnetic recording, and chromatopolarography. For approximately 20 years, Yulia Sister served as a consultant for the use of the polarographic method in biology at the Department of Human and Animal Physiology of the University of Chisinau. In 1984, Yulia Sister was invited to work at the Institute of Technology and Development, where she soon headed the laboratory of physical and chemical methods. The institute was affiliated with a research and production association in Ialoveni (formerly Kutuzov). Sister and her laboratory used a variety of research methods, including high-performance liquid chromatography, which was a new approach in the country's laboratories at the time. She also contributed as a board member of the Moldavian SSR branch of the Mendeleev Chemical Society and led the "Young Chemist" program in the Moldavian SSR. Many of her students, former young chemists, later became scientists and managers of reputable companies.