Young innovators: only biotechnologists are in the top three
A new wave of innovation
All the best youth innovation projects selected last week turned out to be from the field of biotechnology and medicineTigran Oganesyan, Elena Kulikova, "Expert"
Participants II
The All-Russian Youth Innovation Convention, which was held
II The All–Russian Innovation Convention was initially positioned as the most important final event of 2009 – the Year of Youth - and was intended to demonstrate the first concrete results of the implementation of the state program for the development of youth innovation in our country. Everyone should have seen how intensively the process of supplying the sluggish domestic economy with "fresh blood" – a new generation of entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers.
The convention site was visited by Russian
Kaku and smart nanoparticlesThe organizers of the convention chose a very non-standard way to warm up young people.
An hour and a half lecture "Innovation as the engine of society" was delivered by a venerable American scientist, head of the Department of Theoretical Physics at
According to Michio Kaku, "our future will be determined by four breakthrough
The biotechnological trend promises to become no less important. In recent years, there has been clear progress in understanding the mechanisms of aging of the body, in developing methods of effective treatment of various diseases with the help of genetic engineering, technologies for operational monitoring and early diagnosis, point delivery of drugs into the body with "smart" nanoparticles, as well as by creating artificial implants of various organs and parts of the human body.
Professor Kaku emphasized that he pinned his hopes on the current young generation of inquisitive scientists and inventors, including representatives of the new Russian innovation wave who were present in the hall. As an illustrative example, the speaker chose Singapore's "economic miracle". As you know, back in the middle of the last century, Singapore was one of the most backward regions of
Fight illnesses on an equal footingAs the results of the innovative competition held within the framework of the Zvorykinsky project implemented by Rosmolodezh showed, the level of projects presented this year has increased dramatically, and almost any of the 12 finalists of the competition had a real chance to become a winner in one of the three nominations.
This year, all three winners are the authors of projects in the field of biotechnology – one of the most popular and promising areas of the global scientific and technological progress. The expert council of the Zvorykin project in the nomination "Innovative Idea" recognized the development of a young scientist from Kazan, Marat Mukhamedyarov, as the best innovative idea. He proposed a new way to treat neurodegenerative diseases – ailments associated with the death of nerve cells. First of all, these are currently incurable Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Diseases lead to a sharp decrease in mental abilities and various mental disorders, and on average, a person dies eight years after the first signs of the disease appear. Learning to interrupt the process of nerve cell death or at least slow it down means starting to fight these terrible ailments on an equal footing.
Marat Mukhamedyarov began by studying the fundamental problems of nervous systems, and then turned to the study of the mechanisms of the onset and development of Alzheimer's disease. He found out that the disease "adopted"
According to the results of publications in Western scientific publications, the 29−year-old scientist was awarded the prize of the European Academy of Sciences for outstanding young scientists of Russia. Based on his own discoveries, Mukhamedyarov developed a drug that could slow down the death of cells of the nervous system in the future. Tests of a laboratory sample on transgenic mice (the gene that causes Alzheimer's disease is artificially "embedded" in their genotype) showed that the drug restores cell membranes, prevents oxygen starvation of cells and prevents their aging. The scientist needs about 100 million rubles for the final stage of preclinical and the beginning of clinical trials. "This idea is already in the transition to the stage of a full-fledged project, which was less typical of the works of other finalists in this nomination. In addition, we decided to support a biotechnological project in order to send a certain signal to the scientific community and business," Ivan Bortnik, a member of the expert council of the competition, chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Fund for the Promotion of Small Forms of Enterprises
In the nomination "Innovative project" the winner was Lilia Anisimova from Ufa with a biological product for cleaning the environment from dangerous xenobiotics – chemicals alien to living organisms that are not part of the biotic cycle. She proposed her project at last year's competition, but then it was at the idea stage and did not receive recognition. At the Second Convention, Lilia Anisimova presented samples of the drug, the production of which will be organized next year. With the help of this innovation, Russian agricultural enterprises and small farms will be able to clean the land from pesticides accumulated in the soil of acreage. According to Lilia, today in Russia has infected about 74 million hectares of land.
"We found four strains of destructive
In the nomination "Innovative product", the expert council again singled out a biotechnological project – the cultivation of artificial leather. Its author is Ramil Rakhmatullin from Orenburg State University. In 2004, a young scientist participated with his idea in The contest of Russian innovations, organized by the Expert magazine, and became a finalist in the nomination "Promising idea". Over the past five years, he has finally managed to come close to production – the production of Russian artificial leather can begin as early as the third quarter of 2010.
The new biomaterial is based on hyaluronic acid. It is a viscous gel-like substance that is contained in the human body and performs various functions: binds water in the intercellular space, participates in its distribution in tissues, acts as a lubricant in joints and normalizes intraocular pressure. Ramil Rakhmatullin created a new