Scientific interests are in the area of synthetic organic chemistry, the chemistry of natural compounds, and medicinal chemistry. The scientific ideology of the research under the leadership of Prof. Shults is based on the methods of using available compounds from plants as the source for creating agents for medicinal applications. Since 2004, Prof. Shults has been the head of the Laboratory of Medicinal Chemistry at the Novosibirsk Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.