after graduating from the academy, anichkov began preparing his doctoral dissertation. subject was inflammatory diseases of the myocardium. together with his colleague, dr. khalatov, he is studying the development of atherosclerosis in rabbits. it was important to understand what chemical substance they consist of atherosclerotic plaques. soon the young scientists took their first successful step. in the plaques found in the walls of the aortas of rabbits, many droplets were seen visually similar to fatty, as scientists call them, lipid. the same drops were found in the liver of sick animals. onichkov and robes were sorted through different options for their origin until scientists came up with an idea. the idea is that this is what cholesterol deposits might look like, which was discovered at the end of the 14th century. but it never occurred to any of his predecessors that he could be associated with atherosclerosis, the origin of which was unknown to science at the beginning of the 20th century. cholesterol, an organic compound, a natural polycyclic lipophilic alcoho