Victor Talrose

Victor Lvovich Talrose (, April 15, 1922 – June 22, 2004) was a Russian scientist and mass spectrometrist. He was known as the “Father of Russian Mass Spectrometry” and was the author of 440 articles and 6 monographs.

Early education Victor Talrose was born in Tula, Russia, an industrial city on the Upa River 200 kilometers (120 mi) south of Moscow. He was the son of a medical doctor. He graduated from high school in 1939 with a gold medal for outstanding abilities. This assignment was supported by accurate mass measurement and formed the basis for the later development of chemical ionization

From 1953 to 1956, Talrose worked on atomic weapons, then returned to the Kondratyev lab where headed a mass spectrometry group. He developed first Soviet gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and used it for some of the first use of selected ion monitoring for selective compound detection. He also developed gas phase ion chemistry bracketing techniques for determining proton affinity.

In 1959, he became head of a sector or the Chemical Physics institute for the study of free radicals and in 1962 received a D.Sc. for his thesis ‘‘Ion-molecule reactions in gases’. In 1963, he received the Bourke Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Chemical lasers In 1964, Talrose began work on chemical lasers and in 1968, he was elected as a corresponding member of Russian Academy of Sciences. He received the Lenin Prize in 1984 for his work on chemical lasers.

Institute director 1972 became deputy director of the Chemical Physics institute and in 1974 a special sector ‘‘Physical methods of stimulation of chemical reactions’’ was created with labs in Moscow and Chernogolovka. Talrose headed Moscow sector. In 1987, the sector became part of Institute of Energy Problems in Chemical Physics with Talrose as the director.

Move to the United States In 1997, he moved to the United States and began a collaboration with the mass spectrometry group at the University of California at San Francisco.

He received the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation Thomson Medal in 2003.