He graduated from the Faculty of Biology at Azerbaijan State University (now Baku State University) in 1980. He is currently working at the A.N. Belozersky Institute of Physical-Chemical Biology of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov (MSU). In 1987, he defended his PhD dissertation in the specialty of Biochemistry; in 1995, he defended his doctoral dissertation in Biochemistry.
He is the author or co-author of over 110 scientific articles, one book, and one patent. He was a recipient of the Russian Federation President’s grant (1996–1998). In 2006, he won a grant competition supporting MSU scientists for a series of works on "Electrogenic reactions in photosynthesis."
Since 1996, he has served as editor of the Biology section of the U.S. journal Frontiers in Bioscience; since 2011, he has been a member of the editorial board of the U.S. journal The Scientific World Journal. He has been a member of the All-Russian Society of Biochemists and Molecular Biologists since 1996 and has served as vice-president of the All-Russian Society of Photobiologists since 2008.
Under his supervision, seven PhD candidates have been trained.
Together with Professor K. Möbius from the Physics Department of the Free University of Berlin and Professor S. Ciurli from the Biotechnology Department of the University of Bologna, he won a three-year grant from the European Union program INTAS for collaboration with scientists from the New Independent States (2004).
He was included in the list of 100 Young Doctors of Science in Russia (1996).