Yefim Liberman

Efim Arsentievich Liberman (February 1, 1925, Moscow – September 3, 2011, Jerusalem). Soviet and Russian biophysicist and physiologist, winner of the USSR State Prize.

Biography Born into the family of the agronomist Azriil Alterovich Liberman (b. 1885), a native of Suwalki, Poland, and mathematics teacher Sima Khaimovna Izrael (b. 1895), a native of Bialystok, Poland. From 1943 he fought in the Great Patriotic War as an assistant commander of a rifle platoon of the 31st Guards Rifle Division (Bryansk Front). Efim was seriously wounded during the war, and was awarded the For Valour medal for personal courage and bravery in battle.

Efim Liberman graduated from the Moscow State University's Physics Department in 1949. He worked as a radio engineer at Design Bureau No. 1, and in 1951 he joined the Elemental Electric Coal Institute as a senior engineer. In 1953 he held a junior researcher position at the Institute of Roentgenology and Radiology.

From 1955 to 1967 he worked as a researcher at the USSR Academy of Sciences' (now Russian Academy of Sciences) Institute of Biophysics. From 1967 to 2006 he was a researcher at the USSR Academy of Sciences' Institute for Information Transmission Problems, becoming a chief researcher in 1994.

Efim Liberman proposed the idea of a molecular computer as a cellular function (Cytomolecular Computing, 1972) and, alongside Svetlana Minina, he developed the idea of the brain as a quantum molecular computer that processes information at the intracellular level. According to Liberman, natural computation is realized via the programs associated with the DNA and RNA nucleotide sequences and accomplished by the corresponding enzymes acting as processing units that operate upon these nucleotide sequences representing the addresses and commands.

Based on these ideas, he developed a unitary theory of physical and biological sciences.

Family Efim Liberman's first wife was Varvara Viktorovna Shklovskaya-Kordi (b. 1927), a physicist and daughter of the writer Viktor Shklovsky. His son from his first marriage, Nikita Efimovich Shklovsky-Kordi (b. 1952) is a Сandidate of Biological Sciences, physiologist, and a leading researcher at the Russian Health Ministry's Hematology Research Centre.

His second wife was Elena Borisovna Vershilova (b. 1937), daughter of theater director and teacher Boris Ilyich Vershilov (Westerman). They had two sons, Mikhail and Petr (Azriel).

Efim's third wife was Svetlana Vladimirovna Minina, a biophysicist and physiologist.