Bioinformatics in Russia today and tomorrow
RusbaseYuri Pekov, director of Blastim, an online platform for job search in the field of biotechnology, and co–founder of the yCamp post-conferences, wrote about the main trends in bioinformatics and the opportunities that are opening up for specialists in Russia right now.
A little less than a year has passed since in March 2015 the Moscow EMC Research and Development Center for Cloud Computing and Big Data and the Higher School of Economics (HSE) presented the results of a study on the bioinformatics market in Russia – I participated in the work on this study.
In general, bioinformatics, namely research in the field of genetics, is one of the main topics of the Moscow Research and Development Center of the EMC company. At the beginning of December this year, within the framework of the scientific meetings of the Center – EMC Science café – I analyzed what changes in the ecosystem of the bioinformatics market have occurred in Russia to date and told what new things can be expected in its development in the near future. Now I want to share the results of my research with the readers of Rusbase.
The development of the event infrastructure and the gradual "opening" of the market increasingly attracts the attention and interest of investors: representatives of funds can often be found at profile events.
A number of scientists and bioinformatics specialists return from abroad back to Russia, having graduated or gained experience in scientific activity. They see that the Russian bioinformatics market is developing, including the beginning to attract funding, which is very important for young scientists and university graduates. And this trend has a good effect on the overall state of the market.
Although there is a noticeable positive trend, important constraining factors for the holistic development of the bioinformatics market still remain:
- Weak government support;Skepticism of doctors and patients about personalized medicine.
- In general, no one believes in the possibility that there will be a transition and the new medicine will work effectively;Poor public awareness of the possibilities of modern genomics.
- In addition, bioengineering, which supports bioinformatics "from below", providing it with material (reagents, biomaterials, etc.) for further analysis and research, is now in a very difficult situation.
Delivery of reagents from abroad is difficult and can take months due to long delays at customs. These conditions negatively affect the development of bioinformatics in general.In many large universities of the country, bioinformatics faculties still lack specialized courses on sequencing technologies (DNA decoding), working with data obtained as a result of sequencing, their analysis and application in bioinformatics.
However, the situation is changing, universities are beginning to turn to leading market specialists, to create opportunities for additional education within the framework of existing curricula.
The main trends of bioinformatics – 2015:
1. Personalized genomics
The main global trend that has appeared abroad and should reach Russia in a while is personalized genomics. A good example is the company YFull, created by Russian programmers. It allows you to download the genome of one person scanned by another company and find out your place on the genetic tree of all people.
2. "Genomic App Store"
An even larger project, Helix, is being prepared by Illumina with co-investors: they will store the human genome in the cloud, and partners – commercial and scientific groups – will be able to offer tools for its analysis. It should turn out to be a kind of "App Store for the genome".
3. Reducing the cost of DNA decoding
The reduction in the cost of sequencing is another pronounced trend. In addition, the devices become several times smaller, more compact and can fit in the palm of an adult. For example, the Oxford Nanopore is a sequencing device the size of a presentation clicker, with which you can decode your genome within an hour. This technology has just appeared and is being tested, it is too early to talk about its reliability, but the direction of further development is very clearly traced.
4. Modifications of the human genome
Over the past year, genetic engineers using CRISPR technology have almost learned to change the genome of an adult in an arbitrary way – this is another topic actively discussed by the world community. In a few years, this technology will become available to patients, it will be a revolution in bioinformatics. Her main question will be how exactly the human genome can be changed to improve everyone's health. That is, it will be possible to talk not just about personal medicine, but about the possibility of genome editing.
What should young specialists do?
Which companies to go to? Or is it better to create a startup yourself?
Now there are four options:
1. Laboratories
Salary – from 5 to 30 thousand rubles, plus grants. There are about 40 bioinformatics laboratories in Moscow, 15 in St. Petersburg, and another 20 in the country.
2. Biotech companies
There are about 40 companies in Russia that need bioinformatics, almost all of them are located in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Salary: 20 – 150 thousand rubles.
3. Own company
It will be easy to assemble a team, there are a lot of ideas and niches. The most difficult thing is to find investments. Here you can go to business angels or directly to the fund. Russian funds investing in biotech and bioinformatics are well described in the Rusbase review http://rusbase.com/story/biotech-in-russia /.
Usually, Russian bioinformatics firms are bought by large players from pharma, so far there have been no more than 5 exits.
Salary: 0 – 200 thousand rubles.
4. Related areas
Education, scientific education, patents, grants.Usually this option is considered as a side job, but it can become the main source of income.
"Postnauka", FutureBiotech, Geek Picnic, School of Bioinformatics, "Blastim", Institute of Bioinformatics, one–time events - everyone needs lecturers, and there are not enough of them now.Salary: 20 – 150 thousand rubles.
Now there are two large clusters that are engaged in science, education, and popularization:
1. Mikhail Gelfand and his team in Moscow: public lectures, hackathons, FutureBiotech winter schools, seminars, round tables. The company "Blastim" also ranks itself as a member of this team;
2. Institute of Bioinformatics in St. Petersburg: public lectures, summer schools, seminars.
The review was initiated by the EMC Moscow Research and Development Center for Big Data and Cloud Technologies (SIC EMC).
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17.12.2015