Irina Vasilievna Perminova (born 9 February 1960) is a Russian scientist, Professor, Dr. Habil. in Analytical Chemistry, Chief Scientist, Head of the Laboratory of Natural Humic Systems at the Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Fine Organic Synthesis of the Department of Chemistry of the Moscow University, Moscow, Russia
Biography Irina V. Perminova was born in the city of Dzhambul (nowadays, - Taraz) located in the Southern Kazakhstan, in the family of engineers. Her mother – Lydia Yakovlevna Perminova (maiden name – Kopach) (1927–2014), born in the Makovka village, the Novo-Vasilyevsky District, the Zaporozhye Region (Ukraine Republic of the USSR) – graduated with honors from the Dnepropetrovsk Institute of Chemical Technology in 1951, and worked since 1951 until 1976 at the Dzhambul Chemical Plant as a Head of the Central Plant Laboratory. Her father – Vasily Stepanovich Perminov (1928–2017), born in the Bolshoe Korkovo village, Pavinsky District, Kostroma Region (the Russian Federal Republic of the USSR) – graduated from the technical engineering college, served in the navy, worked in Dzhambul since 1953 at the different positions including a Director of Dzhambul Power Plant #3. Her elder sister – Larisa Vasilyevna Zernova (maiden name – Perminova), born in 1956, lives and works in Moscow, same as her husband Vladimir Zernov, and two sons – Yury and Anton Zernovs.
Irina Perminova studied at the School #7 named after K.E. Tsiolkovsky in Dzhambul. The school had in depth education in Chemistry and, mostly thanks to the efforts of Lydia Perminova, Irina's mother, the school received a unique chemical classroom and laboratory equipped with everything necessary for conducting chemical experiments – a donation from the Dzhambul Superphosphate Plant to School #7. Despite that, during her school years, Irina was more interested in Mathematics than in Chemistry. This continued until her participation in the Kazakh Republican Chemistry Olympiad in 1976 in Karaganda. There, she met the teachers from the Department of Chemistry of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, nominally, Vladimir Valentinovich Sorokin. This meeting determined her decision to enter the Department of Chemistry of the MSU. In 1976 the Perminoves’ family moved to Gomel (Belorussian Republic of the USSR), where Irina graduated from the school with honors in 1977 and entered the Department of Chemistry of the MSU shortly after that.
She graduated from the Department of Chemistry Cum Laude in 1982, and continued her studies in the graduate school at the Division of Analytical Chemistry of the Lomonosov MSU until 1985. She defended her PhD in 1987.
Scientific career The scientific research of Irina Perminova since the student years and until today has been devoted to the study of humic substances. This research direction was proposed to her in 1981 by the scientific advisors of her diploma work – Elena Konstantinovna Ivanova, Associate Professor, Ph.D., and Tatiana Vladimirovna Polenova, Assistant Professor, Ph.D., who accepted proposal of Dr. Sergey Methodievich Chernyak, Senior Researcher at the State Oceanographic Institute, to start research collaboration in the field of assessment of the role of humic substances in determination of pesticides in natural waters. This proposal has determined the further scientific path of Perminova. It started with isolation of humic substances from natural waters. To solve this problem, Irina organized her students’ detachment (Kazakhstan-7) for sampling and delivery of 200 liters of water from the pond on the Lenin Hills located a couple of kilometers from the Department of Chemistry. In 1982 Irina Perminova defended her diploma entitled "Studies of the mutual interference in the analysis of organic substances of natural and anthropogenic origin in the marine and fresh waters" at the Division of Analytical Chemistry. She continued her research at the graduate school and in 1987 defended her PhD thesis entitled "Determination of fulvic acids in natural waters". By that time, she was already an employee of the Laboratory of Monitoring of the Environment and Ocean (LAM of the State Committee for Hydrometeorology and the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was transformed in 1991 into the Institute of Global Climate and Ecology), where she began her career in 1986 under the supervision of Dr. Sergey M. Chernyak. As a young researcher of LAM, in 1988 she was fortunate to join the Soviet-American cruise under BerPac Project, which was devoted to studies of subarctic and subequatorial ecosystems under conditions of global climate change. The cruise has completely changed Irina's ideas about the role of humic substances in the World Ocean: it became more and more evident that humics represent an ecosystem metabolite. They can be considered as a molecular marker of the global climate change. She published the paper on distribution of humic substances in the ecosystem of the Bering Sea.Perminova, I.V., 1992: "Humic acids in the Bering and Chukchi Seas ecosystems". In: P.A. Nagel (Ed.) Results of the Third Joint US-USSR Bering&Chukchi Seas Expedition (BERPAC), Summer 1988. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C. pp. 231–237. This was the first work of this kind on the marine humics. Another important outcome of the cruise was established connections with the U.S. scientists.
After the cruise, Irina Perminova started actively participating in the Soviet-American meetings within the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). These activities made her go for in-depth studies of the carbon cycle and brought about understanding the humic substances as a flow of the conservative organic carbon. She participated in two more international cruises – in 1991 and 1993, which confirmed the validity of assumptions about the important role of humic substances as a marker of global climatic processes in the ocean. In 1991 she accepted an invitation of Professor Valery Samsonovich Petrosyan and returned to her alma mater in the capacity of the Senior Researcher at the Division of Organic Chemistry. Unfortunately, this event coincided with the end of the Soviet Union. The state funding of science almost completely stopped. And again, Irina's mother helped the young scientific group to survive by sending the large package of necessary chemical glassware and reagents from the Gomel Superphosphate Plant, where she was working, to the Department of Chemistry of the Lomonosov MSU. At the MSU, Irina Perminova focused her research on three areas: firstly, on the studies of structure and molecular organization of humic substances, secondly, on the study of binding and detoxifying properties of humics in relation to heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and pesticides, and, thirdly, on the search for descriptors and numerical methods for describing the structure of humic substances to build predictive "structure – property" relationships.Perminova I.V., D.V. Kovalevsky, N.Yu. Yashchenko, N.N. Danchenko, A.V. Kudryavtsev, D.M. Zhilin, V.S. Petrosyan, N.A. Kulikova, O.I. Philippova, G.F. Lebedeva, 1996: "Humic substances as natural detoxicants". In: Humic substances and organic matter in soil and water environments: characterization, transformations and interactions. Eds.: C.E. Clapp, M.H.B. Hayes, N. Senesi, S.M. Griffith. St. Paul, Minn., USA, 399–406.Zhilin, D.M., Perminova I.V., Petrosyan V.S., 1996: "Interaction of humic substances with mercury(II)". Russian Journal of Ecol. Chem. 5(2), 131–137.Perminova I.V., N.Yu. Yachshenko, V.A. Polynov, Petrosyan V.S., Venediktov P.S. 1995: "Influence of fulvic acids on the toxicity of fluoranthene and phenantrene in aqueous medium". Russian Journal of Ecol. Chem., 4(3), 234-238.Petrosyan V.S., I.V. Perminova, D.V. Kovalevsky, et al., 1994: "Detoxification of heavy metals, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and pesticides by humic substances in waters and soil". Proceedings of International Congress "Water: ecology and technology", Moscow, Sept. 6–9, 1994. Vol. IV. pp. 1136–1143. In the course of these studies, seven PhD theses were defended under her supervision: Danchenko N.N. (1997), Anisimova M.A. (1997), Kovalevsky D.V. (1998), Zhilin D.M. (1998), Kulikova N.A. (1999), Grechishcheva N.Yu. (2000), Kholodov V.A. (2003). A vast data set on structure and properties of humic substances was obtained, which formed the factual basis of her Dr. Habil. dissertation. Irina Perminova defended Dr. Habil. Dissertation in Analytical Chemistry entitled "Analysis, classification and prediction of the properties of humic acids" in 2000 at the Department of Chemistry of the Lomonosov MSU. In this work for the first time the methodological principles of quantitative analysis of humic substances in terms of composition were formulated using determination of elemental, structural-group and molecular-mass composition, as well as a method of generation of numerical descriptors of structure in terms of integral composition descriptors at the elemental, group and molecular level.Perminova I.V., Grechishcheva N.Yu., Petrosyan V.S. 1999: "Relationships between structure and binding affinity of humic substances for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: relevance of molecular descriptors". Environ. Sci. Technol., 33, 3781–3787Perminova, I.V., Frimmel, F.H., Kudryavtsev, A.V., Kulikova, N.A., Abbt-Braun, G., Hesse, S., Petrosyan, V.S. 2003: "Molecular weight characteristics of aquatic, soil, and peat humic substances as determined by size exclusion chromatography and their statistical evaluation". Environ. Sci. Technol. 37, 2477–2485 For the first time, the legitimacy of the reproducibility ideal for humic systems was experimentally proven: this showed that humics represent typified system with the predictable lines of evolution. In this direction, the first papers were published in the number one journal in the field of Environmental Chemistry – Environmental Science and Technology.Perminova, I.V., Hatfield, K. 2005. "Remediation Chemistry of Humic Substances: Theory and Implications for Technology". In: Use of humic substances to remediate polluted environments: from theory to practice, Perminova I.V., Hatfield K., Hertkorn N. (Eds.), NATO Science Series: IV: Earth and Environmental Sciences, Vol. 52, Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, pp. 3–36 The result of the generalization of works on the ecological chemistry of humic substances was a monograph published in 2005 in the Springer publishing house entitled: "Use of Humic Substances to Remedy Polluted Environments: from theory to practice", where Irina Perminova became the editor-in-chief. In the same monograph, her seminal review article was published: "Remediation Chemistry of Humic Substances" co-authored with Kirk Hatfield from the University of Florida (USA).
In 2006 Irina Perminova was awarded the title of Professor in Ecology (Chemical Sciences).