For more than a hundred years, physicists have been known about quantum effects, for example, quanta's ability to disappear in one place and appear in the other, or to be in two places at the same time. However, the striking properties of quantum mechanics are applicable not only in physics, but also in biology.

The best example of quantum biology is photosynthesis: plants and some bacteria use the energy of sunlight to build the molecules you need. It turns out that photosynthesis actually relies on the striking phenomenon - the small mass of energy is "studying" all possible paths for the self-satisfaction, and then "choose" the most effective. It is possible, navigating birds, DNA mutations and even our sense of smell is somehow rely on quantum effects. Although this area of \u200b\u200bscience is still very speculative and controversial, scientists believe that one day the ideas have once drawn from quantum biology can lead to the creation of new drugs and biomimetic systems (biological system - another new scientific area, where biological systems and structures are used to create new materials and devices. ).

3. Excomometorology

Jupiter

Along with exocoearanographs and exogeologists, exomeoretologists are interested in studying the natural processes occurring on other planets. Now that thanks to powerful telescopes it has become possible to study internal processes on nearby planets and satellites, exometeorologists can monitor their atmospheric and weather conditions. And Saturn with its incredible scale is the first candidates for research, as well as Mars with regular dust storms.

Excometoreologists are studied even the planets outside our solar system. And what is interesting, they can eventually find signs of extraterrestrial life on exoplates by detecting in an atmosphere of organic traces or increased level of carbon dioxide - a sign of industrial civilization.

4. Nutriegenomika

Nutrigentomic is a study of complex relationships between food and genome expression. Scientists working in this area seek to understand the role of genetic variations and dietary reactions to how nutrients affect the genome.

Food really has a huge impact on health - and everything is in a literal sense at the molecular level. Nutrigentomic works in both directions: studies how it is our genome that affects the gastronomic preferences, and vice versa. The main purpose of the discipline is to create personalized nutrition - this is necessary so that our food is perfect for our unique generation set.

5. Cleeliomic

Cleedinamics is discipline that combines historical macrosociology, economic history (cliometric), mathematical modeling of long-term social processes, as well as systematization and analysis of historical data.

The name comes on behalf of the Greek Muse of History and Poetry Clio. Simply put, cliodynamics is an attempt to predict and describe wide social ties of history - and to study the past, and as a potential way to predict the future, for example, for the forecasts of social exclusion.

6. Synthetic biology

Synthetic biology is the design and construction of new biological parts, devices and systems. It also includes the modernization of existing biological systems for an infinite amount of useful applications.

Craig Venter, one of the leading experts in this area, stated in 2008 that he recreated the entire genome of the bacteria by gluing its chemical components. Two years later, his team created a "synthetic life" - DNA molecules created by digital code, and then printed on a 3D printer and embedded in a living bacterium.

In the future, biologists intend to analyze the various types of genome to create beneficial organisms to introduce into the body and biorobots, which can produce chemicals - biofuels - from scratch. There is also an idea to create a struggling with pollution artificial bacterium or vaccine for treating serious diseases. The potential of this scientific discipline is just a huge.

7. Recombinant memetics

This area of \u200b\u200bscience is only emerging, but it is already clear that this is only a matter of time - sooner or later scientists will receive a better understanding of the whole human noosphere (the totality of all known people's information) and how the dissemination of information affects almost all aspects of human life.

Like recombinant DNA, where various genetic sequences are collected together to create something new, recombinant memetics studies how the ideas transmitted from a person to person can be adjusted and combined with other memes and memepers - established complexes of interrelated memes. This may be useful in "socially-therapeutic" purposes, for example, to combat the spread of radical and extremist ideologies.

8. Computational sociology

Like a cliodynamics, computational sociology is engaged in the study of social phenomena and trends. The central place in this discipline takes the use of computers and related information processing technologies. Of course, this discipline was developed only with the advent of computers and the widespread spread of the Internet.

Particular attention in this discipline is paid to huge flows of information from our daily life, such as email, phone calls, posts on social networks, shopping on a credit card, search engines and so on. Examples of work can serve as a study of the structure of social networks and how information is distributed through them, or as an intimate relationship arise on the Internet.

9. Cognitive economy

As a rule, the economy is not associated with traditional scientific disciplines, but this may change due to the close interaction of all scientific sectors. This discipline is often configured with behavioral economy (studying our behavior in the context of economic decisions). The cognitive economy is the science of how we think. Whether Caldwell, the author of the blog about this discipline, writes about it:

"Cognitive (or financial) economy ... draws attention to what actually happens in the mind of a person when he makes a choice. What is an internal decision structure that it affects what information does the mind perceive at this point and how it is processed, what kind of human internal forms of preference and, ultimately, how do all these processes reflect in behavior? ".

In other words, scientists begin their studies at the lowest, simplified level, and form micromodes of decision-making principles for developing a model of large-scale economic behavior. Often, this scientific discipline interacts with adjacent areas, for example, by computing economies or cognitive science.

10. Plastic electronics

Usually electronics are associated with inert and inorganic conductors and semiconductors like copper and silicon. But the new electronics industry uses conductive polymers and carrying out small molecules, the basis of which is carbon. The organic electronics includes the development, synthesis and processing of functional organic and inorganic materials along with the development of advanced micro and nanotechnology.

In truth, this is not such a new branch of science, the first developments were made back in the 1970s. However, to reduce all the troubled data, it turned out only recently, in particular, at the expense of the nanotechnology revolution. Thanks to the organic electronics, organic solar batteries, self-organizing monolayers in electronic devices and organic prostheses may soon appear, which in the future can be replaced by man damaged limbs: in the future, the so-called cyborgs are quite possible, will be more from the organicity than from synthetic Parts.

11. Computational biology

If you like mathematics and biology equally, then this discipline is just for you. Computational biology seeks to understand biological processes through mathematics language. It is equally used for other quantitative systems, such as physics and computer science. Scientists from the University of Ottawa explain how it became possible:

"As the biological instrument making and easy access to computing capacities, biology, as such, have to operate with a large number of data, and the speed of knowledge gained is only growing. Thus, the sensation of data now requires a computational approach. At the same time, from the point of view of physicists and mathematicians, the biology has grown to such a level when theoretical models of biological mechanisms can be checked experimentally. This led to the development of computing biology. "

Scientists working in this area are analyzed and measured everything from molecules and ending with ecosystems.

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July 11, 2008.

Science about life Life Sciences) unite a variety of branches of biology, biotechnology and medicine. In recent years, this is one of the priorities of world science and economics. The choice of sciences about life as a priority direction of development is explained by a number of reasons. These sciences are the basis for ensuring the priority needs of humanity.

First of all, it is health. In order to take care of health, it is necessary to understand what is happening with a healthy person, and what happens during pathology. Especially important is the science of life in conditions of increasing the average life expectancy: the need to ensure the elderly members of society healthy and active old age places new tasks before biology and medicine. Secondly, the growing population of the world and the growth of well-being requires the development of new ways to increase the productivity of agriculture, new plant varieties are not only more crop, but also with improved consumer properties. Third, the increasing load provided by humanity in nature requires an increasingly deep study of the ecology and measures to reduce this load - for example, due to methods for obtaining biofuels, biodegradable plastics, progressive methods of agriculture, reducing environmental pollution and bioremediation - Restoration of contaminated or destroyed biocenoses.

The central link, uniting the sciences of life, are biotechnologies in the widest understanding of this term.

Priority of living systems

Identification of personality and reliable diagnosis of diseases, cultivation of organs for man and the creation of crops with increased content of vitamins, fats and proteins, new vaccines and medicines - these and many other technologies rightfully refer to the broadest space called "live systems".

The creation of a developed economy in the post-industrial society is impossible without updating the technological direction and forms of scientific activities that correspond to the coming economic system. Therefore, one of the key tasks of our state is the formation of an efficient and competitive sector of science and innovation. The main tool of the state in the field of development of science and technology is the Federal Target Program "Research and Development on Priority Directions for the Development of the Scientific and Technical Complex of Russia for 2007-2012." As part of this program, the state funds the work corresponding to the selected scientific and scientific and technical state priorities, one of which is "live systems".

Help Strf.ru:
Works on the priority area "Living Systems" are underway and within the framework of the Federal Target Program "Research and Development on Priority Directions for the Development of the Scientific and Technological Complex of Russia for 2007-2012". As part of this direction, the following critical technologies were developed in 2008 in 2008:
- biomedical and veterinary livelihood and human and animal protection technologies;
- biocatalytic, biosynthetic and biosensory technologies;
- genomic and post-agenous technologies for creating medicines;
- cellular technology;
- Bioengineering technology.

Concept "Life Sciences" (Life Sciences) It came to replace the usual concept of "biological sciences" and gave the general name to all sciences about alive: zoology and genetics, botanic and molecular biology, physiology and biochemistry, ecology and medicine. All those who work in these areas are dealing with living systems, that is, with alive organisms, be it a person or flower, a virus or bacterium. We can say that living systems are all that multiplies, breathes, feeds, moves.

However, it is not just about changing the name. The term "live systems" is more active, more structured. It reflects the systematic approach to this interdisciplinary field of science and knowledge in which biologists, chemists, physics, mathematics work. In addition, the term "live systems" is very technological. It provides not only the knowledge and opening of the principles of the organization of living, but also use of this knowledge in the form of new technologies. This approach offers to different specialists to move from a scientific idea to its practical embodiment and use in the interests of people.

Identification of personality and reliable diagnosis of diseases, cultivation of organs for man and the creation of crops with increased content of vitamins, fats and proteins, new vaccines and medicines - these and many other technologies rightfully refer to the broadest space called "live systems". Studies and developments made in this area will fill in our industry with high-tech technologies, health improves and will increase the security of citizens of Russia. That is why living systems are one of the main state priorities in the field of science technicians, actively supported by federal targeted programs.

This collection will briefly introduce the reader with the concept of technological platforms and biotechnology, as well as some developments of leading Russian scientific teams working in the priority direction "Living Systems".

Help Strf.ru:
Distribution of financing towards "living systems" within the framework of the Federal Target Program in 2008 by region (million rubles):
DVFO - 9 contracts, budget 116.5
PFO - 17 contracts, budget 140.1
NWFO - 32 contracts, budget 156.0
SFO - 34 contracts, budget 237.4
UFO - 1 contract, budget 50
CFO - 202 contracts, budget 2507.8
SFO - 4 contracts, budget 34.85

Knowledge as technology

In a conversation about the development of fundamental and applied developments in the field of living systems, the concept of "technology" is increasingly found. In the modern, post-industrial economy under technologies understand the set of documented knowledge for focused activities using technical means (for example, organizational technologies, consumption technologies, social technologies, political technologies). It should be noted that in a market economy technology, as a kind of knowledge, are a product. A complex of knowledge, denoted by this concept, sets questions not only about what we do, but also as, and most importantly, why do we do it.

When determining the development strategies of the scientific and technical complex on the scale of the country, the concept of "technological platform" is used. There is no unambiguous definition of this term yet. Nevertheless, it is already obvious that this concept includes a totality of knowledge, techniques, material and technical base and qualified personnel, changing depending on external orders for scientific and technological work. The priority direction "Living Systems" can be considered as a set of several technological platforms.

Opened secrets

From living systems, we draw technologies that for nature - the norm of life. It uses them in the emergence, development and death of any living organism. Moreover, at each level of the hierarchy of a living system - a genetic, cellular, organiser, a set of technological solutions is operating.

Any living system begins with the main life molecule, DNA, which stores and transmits from generation to generation hereditary information. DNA can be conventionally divided into semantic seats - genes. They send commands to synthesize those or other proteins that form signs of the body and providing its life. The number of genes in humans scientists are estimated at 20-25 thousand. If there were breakdowns in the genes, called mutations, severe diseases develop in humans. The volume of text, "recorded" in the genome, is identical to the submissive newspaper "Izvestia" for 30 years.

DNA lives and works in a cage. Live cell is perfection itself. She knows how to turn useless substances into the right, synthesize for the body internal medicines, building material and much more. Every minute in a living cell, millions of chemical reactions occur under the most common conditions - in an aqueous medium, without high pressure and temperatures.

One cage lives in itself only in single-cell organisms - bacteria., Most of the living systems are multicellular. In the body of an adult, it contains an average of 10 14 cells. They are born, transform themselves, perform their work and die. But at the same time live in harmony and collaboration, building collective protection systems (immune system), adaptation (regulatory system) and others.

Step by step We reveal the secrets of living systems and on the basis of this knowledge create biotechnology.

Biotechnology

Biotechnologies can be defined as processes in which living systems or their components are used for the production of substances or other living systems. Live creatures are peculiar "factories", processing rates (nutrients) in a wide variety of products necessary to maintain their lives. And besides, these factories are able to reproduce, that is, to generate other similar similar "factories".

Today we already know much about how "workers" of living factories - genome, cellular structures, proteins, cells themselves and the organism as a whole are arranged and function.

Thanks to this knowledge, let it still be incomplete, the researchers learned to manipulate individual elements of living systems - genes (genomic technologies), cells (cellular technologies) - and create genetically modified living organisms with features useful for us (genetic engineering). We are able to adapt natural "factories" to produce the product you need (industrial biotechnology). And moreover, it is genetically modified by these factories so that they synthesize what we need.

So we create biotechnologies, which will be discussed. But before we introduce you to the examples of technologies already delivered to the person, a few words should be said about the elegant decision, which today helps scientists penetrate into the secrets of life and know the mechanisms of living systems. After all, the processes flowing into the cell are not visible, and the scientific search requires technologies with which you can see them and understand. By the way, this decision is already in itself biotechnology.

Luminous proteins

To find out how genes work, it is necessary to see the result of their work, that is, proteins that are synthesized by their team. How to see exactly those that we are looking for? Scientists have found a method that allows them to make proteins visible, shining in ultraviolet light.

Such glowing proteins are found in nature, for example, in marine races and jellyfish. During World War II, the Japanese used as a local source of light powder from the "sea firefly" - a bivalve sink lap. When he was swollen in the water, he shone brightly. For the first time, the luminous proteins were allocated for the first time in the late 50s of the twentieth century. From this began the history of the famous GFP - green fluorescent protein (Green Fluorescent Protein). And in 2008, O.Simomur, M.Celfi and R.cien (USA) for fluorescent proteins received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. With the help of these proteins, you can make a variety of living objects, from cellular structures to an integer animal. The fluorescent flashlight, which was able to trailer genetic manipulations to the desired proteins, allowed to see where and when this protein is synthesized into which cells are sent. It was a coup in biology and medicine.

But the red fluorescent proteins were first found in corals and other maritime organisms two Russian researchers - Mikhail Mats and Sergey Lukyanov. Now we have fluorescent proteins of all the colors of the rainbow, and the sphere of their use is very wide: from the front edge of biology and medicine, including oncology, and the detection of poisonous and explosives to glowing aquarium fish.

Under the leadership of Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences S. Lulkjanova (Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences) created the Russian biotechnology company "Evrogen", which supplies the scientists of the whole world with multi-colored fluorescent tags. Today, Eurogen is one of the leaders in the global market of fluorescent proteins for biological research.

Genetic identification

We are all very different. Appearance, character, ability, susceptibility to medicines, rejection of one or another food - all this is specified genetically. The uniqueness of the genome of each of us makes it a reliable tool for identification. Essentially, our genes are the same fingerprints, only other nature. The DNA identification method introduced into the criminalistic practice of the British researcher Alik Jephris in the 80s of the last century. Today it is a common and familiar procedure around the world.

It is used in Russia. However, we buy reagents for analysis abroad. At the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, under the leadership of Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nikolai Yankovsky creates a set of reagents for human DNA identification. The emergence of such a domestic instrument is very timely, since from January 1, 2009, the Law "On Genomic Registration" will come into force, adopted by the State Duma of the Russian Federation on November 19, 2008. The development of our scientists will not only allow you to refuse to import, but also gives the hands of criminals a more perfect tool, which, unlike Western counterparts, works with a strongly destroyed DNA. And this is a frequent case in forensic examination.

With this tool, another major social task will be solved - the creation of a bank of genetic data of violators of the law, thanks to which the disclosure of crimes will increase and the investigation time will increase. In the UK, the base of the genetic data of people, one way or another associated with the criminal world, has already numbered several million people.

The DNA Identification method is especially good for the identity of the person who died in wars, catastrophes and under other circumstances. Today it is used in Russia. The most famous case is the identification of the remains of the last royal family. The final stage of this great work is the identification of the remains of the Son and the daughter of the emperor - made by Professor Evgeny Rogaev, the head of the genomics department of the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Finally, another area of \u200b\u200bapplication of the DNA Identification method is to establish paternity. Studies show that a few percent of legal fathers are not biological. For a long time, the paternity was established on the analysis of the blood of a child and a parent - determined the blood group, the rhesus factor and compared the data. However, this method was unreliable in essence, as researchers now understand, and gave a lot of mistakes that were wrapped in personal tragedies. The use of DNA identification increased the accuracy of the analysis to almost 100%. Today, this technique for the establishment of paternity is available in Russia.

Genetic diagnostics

Make a complete analysis of the genome of one person while there is a huge money - two million dollars. True, in ten years, as technology improves, the price will fall, according to forecasts, up to a thousand dollars. But you can not describe all genes. Often it is enough to assess the work of only individual groups of genes, critical for the occurrence of different ailments.

Genetic diagnostics requires special devices, miniature, fast and accurate. These devices are called biochipami. The world's first patent for biochips to determine the DNA structure belongs to Russia - the team of academician Andrei Mirzabekov from the Institute of Molecular Biology. V.A. Engelgardt RAS. Then, in the late 80s of the last century, the team Mirzabekova developed micromatrice technology. They began to call them with the biochips.

Biological microchips are a small plate of glass or plastic, on the surface of which there are many cells. In each of these holes there is a marker on one or another portion of the genome, which must be detected in the sample. If there is a patient's blood sample on the biochip, then you can find out whether there is something we are looking for - the corresponding well will glow due to a fluorescent tag.

Watching a spent biochip, researchers can diagnose the predisposition to one or another diseases, as well as detect dangerous viruses in the patient's blood, for example, tuberculosis or hepatitis C. After all, the virus is nothing more than a piece of alien DNA in a protein shell. Thanks to the new method, the duration of complex laboratory tests of biological materials has decreased from several weeks to one day.

Today, biological microbirls are developing dozens of companies in Europe and in the United States. However, Russian biochips successfully withstand competition. One analysis using the Biocip-IMB test system is only 500 rubles, while the use of a foreign counterpart costs $ 200-500.

And at the Institute of Molecular Biology, RAS started certification of biochips that reveal the varieties of hepatitis C virus in the patient. The market potential of the new technology is huge. After all, with the help of traditional analyzes, in each third case, it is not possible to find out what kind of variety has a found virus. Now this task is solved.

With the help of DNA diagnostics, you can not only detect diseases and predisposition to them, but also to adjust the daily diet. For example, to include whole milk or not. The fact is that many people have solid milk causes nausea, diarrhea and general ailment. This is due to a lack of an enzyme that destroys milk sugar - lactose. Because of him in the body and the troubles arise. And the presence of the enzyme is due to genetically. According to genetic studies, from a third to half of adults in our country (depending on the region) are not able to absorb whole milk. Nevertheless, the school diet continues to prescribe a glass of milk a day every child. With the help of DNA diagnosticum, developed at the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, it is easy to establish who can be recommended whole milk, and who does not have. This aims to "preserve the health of healthy people", implemented by the Russian Academy of Sciences, together with the administration of the Tambov region.

Gene therapy

Genetic diagnosis is building a foundation for the medicine of the future. But medicine is not only a diagnosis, this is the treatment. Can we correct defective genes in a living organism or replace them with full-fledged in those severe cases when traditional treatment is powerless? It is such a task that puts genetic therapy.

The essence of the genetic therapy in words is simple: it is necessary to either "repair" the broken gene in the cells of those tissues and organs, where it does not work, or to deliver a full-fledged gene into the body of the patient, which we can synthesize in a test tube. Today, several methods of introducing new genes in cells have been developed. This is the delivery of genes with the help of neutralized viruses, microengetation of genetic material in the cell core, the shelling of cells from a special cannon with the smallest gold particles, which carry healthy genes on their surface, etc. while success in the field of practical genetic therapy is quite a bit. However, there are bright and witty finds, including in Russian laboratories.

One of these ideas intended for the treatment of cancer can be conditionally called the Trojan horse. One of the genes of herpes virus genes is introduced into cancer cells. Until a certain pore, this "Trojan horse" does not detect itself. But it is necessary to introduce a patient medicine into the body, widely used for the treatment of herpes (ganciclovir), as the gene begins to work. As a result, an extremely toxic substance that destroys the tumor from the inside is formed in the cells. Another embodiment of cancer's gene therapy is the delivery to cancer cells of genes, which will provoke the synthesis of so-called "suicidal" proteins leading to "suicide" of cancer cells.

The technology of delivering genes to cancer cells is developing a large team of scientists from the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry. M.M.Sheyakina and Yu.A.ovachinnikova RAS, Russian Oncology Scientific Center, RAMS, Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Biology, GENA RAS. Manages the work of academician Evgeny Sverdlov. The main emphasis in the project is made on the creation of drugs against lung cancer (first death rate) and esophageal cancer (seventh place). However, the methods created and designs will be useful to combat any kind of cancer, which are more than a hundred. After the necessary clinical trials, if they are successful, drugs will be included in practice in 2012.

Diagnosis of cancer

A large number of scientific teams in Russia and in the world work on cancer's problem. This is understandable: annually cancer collects a little less fatal harvest than cardiovascular diseases. The task of scientists is to create technologies that allow detecting cancer in the earliest stages, and aiming, without side effects for the body, destroy cancer cells. Early and fast diagnosis when the analysis takes only a few hours, it is extremely important for traditional cancer therapy. Doctors know that the disease is easier to destroy in the embryo. Therefore, clinics of the whole world need in the diagnostic technologies that meet these requirements. And here to help researchers come biotechnology.

A new approach to early and rapid diagnosis of cancer for the first time in the world was offered Alexander Chetverin from the Institute of Protein RAS. The essence of the method is to identify the MRNA molecules that remove information from the respective portions of the genome and carry the command to the synthesis of cancer proteins. If such molecules are present in the patient's blood sample, then you can diagnose: there is cancer. However, the problem is that it is very few of these molecules in a blood sample, and there are many others. How to find and see that single specimens that we need? This task was solved by the team of scientists under the leadership of A.Chatserin.

The researchers have learned to multiply the desired, but invisible molecules-markers of cancer cells using the so-called polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

As a result, whole molecular colonies grow from one invisible molecule, which can already be seen in the microscope. If in a patient's blood sample (say, in one millilitress) contains at least one cancer cell and one marker molecule, then the emerging disease can be revealed.

The analysis can be done in just a few hours, and it is worth several thousand rubles. But if you use it in a mass order, for example, with an annual prophylactic medical examination, then the price may decrease to 300-500 rubles.

Cancer treatment

In the treatment of cancer, there are also several new approaches based on biotechnology. One of them is the use of specific antibodies as anti-cancer means.

Antibodies are protein molecules produced by the cells of the immune system. In essence, this is a chemical weapon that uses our body in the fight against all kinds of viruses, as well as with the reborn cells of its own body - cancer. If the immune system itself does not cope with cancer, it can help her.

Scientists from the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology (Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences) Under the leadership of Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergey Deva design a new generation of antibodies that recognize the target and destroy it. This approach is based on the principle of the so-called "magical bullet", which is always and unmistakably finds his sacrifice. Antibodies, how can not be better suitable for this role. One part of their molecule serves as an "antenna", leading to the goal - the surface of the cancer cell. And to the tail of the antibody, you can chain various ammunition agents - toxins, organic molecules, radioactive isotopes. They possess different effects, but everyone ultimately kill the tumor.

Cancer cells can be destroyed and almost natural. It is enough to start the mechanism of the programmed cell death, a kind of suicide stipulated by nature. Scientists call it apoptosis. The suicide mechanism is launched intracellular enzymes that destroy proteins inside the cell and the DNA itself. Unfortunately, cancer cells are amazingly survivors, because they know how to suppress their suicidal "moods". The problem is that these enzymes in cancer cells are very small, so it is difficult to launch apoptosis.

However, it is solved and this problem. To launch the suicide mechanism, Siberian scientists offer to open the membranes of cellular structures, for example, mitochondria. Then the cage will inevitably die. In this large project, the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, SSC "Vector" (pos. Koltsovo), Municipal Lung Surgery (Novosibirsk), NPF "Medical Technologies" (Kurgan), Research Institute of Clinical and Experimental Immunology of the RAM (Novosibirsk). The joint efforts researchers selected substances that can open the membranes of cellular structures, and developed a method for delivering these substances into a cancer cell.

Vaccines

Use our knowledge of the immune system of animals is not only for the treatment of cancer, but also any infectious diseases. We receive immunity against most diseases "by inheritance", against others we acquire immunity, moved a disease caused by a new infection. But immunity can be trained - for example, by vaccination.

The effectiveness of vaccination was first demonstrated by a doctor by Edward Jenner, who had proven that a person who had a cow's abscess became unresponsive to the OPE natural. Since then, many diseases are taken under the control of doctors. Since the pasteur for vaccines, weakened or killed viruses are used. But it imposes restrictions: there is no guarantee that there are no active virus particles in the vaccine, work with many of them requires great caution, the shelf life of the vaccine depends on the storage conditions.

These difficulties can be bypass using genetic engineering methods. With the help of them, it is possible to produce individual components of bacteria and viruses, and then introduce them to patients - the protective effect will be no worse than using ordinary vaccines. The first to be obtained with the help of genetic engineering were vaccines for animals - against foot andnae, rabies, dysentery and other animal diseases. The first genetic-ventricular vaccine for man has become a vaccine against hepatitis V.

Today, for most infections, we can make vaccines - classic or genenis-ventricular. The main problem is related to the chumay of the twentieth century - AIDS. Vaccination to him only on hand. After all, it spurs the immune system, causes the body to produce more immune cells. A human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), causing AIDS, just in these cells lives and multiplies. In other words, we provide him even more opportunities - new, healthy cells of the immune system for infection.

Studies on the search for Vaccines against AIDS have a long history and are based on the discovery made in the 70s of the last century by the future academicians R.V. Petrov, V.A. Kabanov and R.M. Khaitov. The essence of him is that polyelectrolytes (charged polymer molecules soluble in water) We interact with the cells of the immune system and encourage the last to produce antibodies. And if to pin the molecule to attach, for example, one of the proteins that make up the virus shell, the immune response will be included against this virus. Such a vaccine on the action mechanism is fundamentally different from all vaccines that were previously created in the world.

The first in the world and while the only polyelectrolyte, which is allowed to introduce into the human body, has become polyoxidonium. Then to the polymer "sewed" the proteins of the influenza virus. The influenza vaccine, which for almost 10 years is protected from viral infection millions of people in Russia for almost 10 years.

On the same method today, a vaccine against AIDS is also created. The protein characteristic of the AIDS virus was tied with a polyelectrolyte. The resulting vaccine was successfully checked on mice and rabbits. According to the results of preclinical tests, the Institute of Immunology of the Russian Academy of Sciences issued permission to conduct clinical trials with the participation of volunteers. If all stages of testing the drug will be successful, it can be used not only for the prevention of HIV infection, but also for the treatment of AIDS.

Medicines presented by biotechnology

Medicines still remain the main tool of medical practice. However, the possibilities of the chemical industry producing the lion's share of medical drugs are limited. The chemical synthesis of many substances is complicated, and often it is impossible, as, for example, the synthesis of the vast majority of proteins. And here for the rescue come biotechnology.

Production of drugs using microorganisms has a long history. The first antibiotic is Penicillin - allocated from mold in 1928, and its industrial production began in 1940. Following Penicillin, other antibiotics were opened and their mass production was established.

For a long time, many drugs based on human proteins managed to receive only in small quantities, their production was very expensive. Genetic engineering gave hope that the spectrum of protein preparations and their amount will increase dramatically. And these expectations were justified. Several tens of drugs obtained by biotechnology, have already entered medical practice. According to the calculations of specialists, the annual volume of the global drug market based on proteins created by a genengentine, increases by 15% and by 2010 will amount to $ 18 billion.

The most vivid example of the works of our biotechnologists in this area - agenic insulin of a person who is produced at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry. M.M.shyakina and Yu.A.Ochinnikova RAS. Insulin, that is, a hormone of the protein structure, regulates the decomposition of sugar in our body. It can be removed from animals. Previously did it. But even insulin from the pancreas of pigs - the biochemically closest animals close to us - still different from human.

Its activity in the human body is lower than the activity of human insulin. In addition, our immune system does not tolerate alien proteins and rejects them with all their might. Therefore, the entered pork insulin may disappear before the medical action has time to have. The problem was solved by a genetic engineering technology, which today produce human insulin, including in Russia.

In addition to the mannine-engineered insulin of a person at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry. MM Sumyakina and Yu.A.ovachinnikova RAS IBH RAS together with the hematological scientific center of the RAMS created the production technology of proteins to combat massive blood loss. Human serum albumin and blood clotting factor - excellent ambulance and resuscitation, in demand by medicine disasters.

Genetically modified plants

Our knowledge in the field of genetics, the replenished day of day, allowed us to create not only genetic tests for diagnosing diseases and glowing proteins, vaccines and medicines, but also new organisms. Today there is hardly a person who has not heard of genetically modified, or transgenic, organisms (GMOs). These are plants or animals, the composition of the DNA of which are introduced from outside the genes that give these organisms new, useful, from the point of view of a person, properties.

Army GMO is great. In its ranks - and useful microbes that work on biotechnological factories and produce a lot of useful substances for us, and agricultural crops with improved properties, and mammals that give more meat, more milk.

One of the most mass divisions of GMO is, of course, plants. After all, time immemorials they serve as a person, feeding animals. From plants, we get fibers for construction, substances for drugs and perfumes, raw materials for the chemical industry and energy, fire and heat.

We still improve the quality of plants and bring new varieties using selection. But this painstaking and time-consuming process requires a lot of time. Genetic engineering, which allowed us to insert useful genes in the plant in the genome, raised the selection to a fundamentally new level.

The very first transgenic plant created by a quarter of a century ago was tobacco, and today in the world in an industrial scale, 160 transgenic crops are used. Among them are corn and soy, rice and rapeseed, cotton and flax, tomatoes and pumpkin, tobacco and beets, potatoes and carnations and others.

In the center of "bioengineering", the Russian Academy of Sciences, which is managed by Academician K.G.Skryabin. Together with Belarusian colleagues, the first domestic genetically modified culture was created - the potato variety of the "Elizabeth" potato, resistant to the Colorad beetle.

The first genetically modified cultures obtained in the early 1980s were resistant to herbicides and insects. Today, with the help of genetic engineering, we obtain varieties containing more nutrients resistant to bacteria and viruses, to drought and cold. In 1994, for the first time a variety of tomatoes, not subject to rotten, was created. This variety appeared in the markets of genetically modified products in two years. The other transgenic product was widely fame - Golden Rice (Golden Rice). In him, in contrast to ordinary rice, beta-carotene is formed - the predecessor of vitamin A, which is absolutely necessary for the growth of the body. Golden Rice partly solves the problem of the full nutrition of the inhabitants of those countries where the rice still remains the main dish in the diet. And this is at least two billion people.

Nutrition and yield are not the only goals that genetic engineers pursue. You can create such varieties of plants that will contain in their leaves and fruits of vaccine and medicine. It is very valuable and convenient: Vaccines from transgenic plants cannot be contaminated with dangerous animal viruses, and the plants themselves are easy to grow in large quantities. And finally, on the basis of plants, you can create "edible" vaccines when it is enough to eat some transgenic fruit or vegetable for vaccination, for example, potatoes or banana. For example, a carrot containing substances that participate in the formation of the body's immune response. Such plants together create scientists of two leading biological institutions of Siberia: the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine SB RAS.

We must not say that the society is wary of genetically modified plants (GMP). And in the scientific community itself, a discussion on the possible potential hazard of the GMR continues. Therefore, there are studies all over the world, allowing to assess the risks associated with the use of GMR - food, agrotechnical, environmental. While the World Health Organization states the following: "Experience accumulated over 10 years of commercial use of GM cultures, analysis of the results of special research shows: so far, there is not a single proven case of toxicity or unfavorable influence of registered GM cultures as sources of food or feed "

Since 1996, when the commercial cultivation of the GMR began, until 2007, the total area in sitting by the transgenic plants increased from 1.7 million to 114 million hectares, which is about 9% of all arable space in the world. Moreover, 99% of this area occupy five cultures: soy, cotton, rice, corn and rape. In the total volume of their production, genetically modified grades are over 25%. The absolute leader in the use of the GMR is the United States, in which 75% of cotton and soy were transgenived in 2002. In Argentina, the share of transgenic soy was 99%, 65% of the rape was produced in Canada, and 51% cotton in China. The cultivation of the GMR in 2007 was employed by 12 million farmers, of which 90% live in developing countries. In Russia, industrial cultivation of the GMR is prohibited by law.

Genetically modified animals

Similar strategy use gene engineers and to remove new rocks of animals. In this case, the gene responsible for the manifestation of any valuable sign is introduced into a fertilized egg, which further develops a new organism. Let's say if a set of animal genes to supplement the hormone genome, stimulating growth, then such animals will grow faster with a smaller number of food consumed. At the exit - more cheap meat.

An animal can be a source of not only meat and milk, but the medicinal substances contained in this milk. For example, the most valuable human proteins. We have already told about some of them. Now this list can be supplemented with lactoferrin - protein that protects newborns from hazardous microorganisms until their own immunity earned.

The body of a woman produces this substance with the first portions of breast milk. Unfortunately, the milk is not in all mothers, so human lactoferrin needs to be added to a mixture for artificial feeding to preserve the health of newborns. If the protective protein in nutrition is sufficient, then the mortality rate of pile artificials from various gastrointestinal infections can be reduced tenfold. This protein is in demand not only in the children's food industry, but also, for example, in the cosmetic industry.

The technology of production of goat milk with human lactoferrin is developed at the Institute of Biology of the RAS Gena and the Scientific and Practical Center of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus on animal husbandry. This year the first two transgenic goats appeared. The creation of each of them was spent over several years of research of 25 million rubles. It remains to wait when they grow up, breed and begin to give milk with a valuable human protein.

Cellular engineering

There is another tempting area of \u200b\u200bbiotechnology - cellular technology. In the body of a person live and work fantastic cells in their abilities - stem. They come to replace the dead cells (say, red blood cells, a red blood cell of blood, lives only 100 days), they heal our fractures and wounds, restore damaged tissues.

The existence of stem cells predicted the Russian hematologist from St. Petersburg Alexander Maximov back in 1909. After several decades, his theoretical assumption was confirmed experimentally: stem cells found and allocated. But the real boom began at the end of the twentieth century, when progress in the field of experimental technologies made it possible to see the potential of these cells.

So far, the progress in medicine associated with the use of stem cells is more than modest. We can allocate these cells, store, multiply, experiment with them. But still do not fully understand the mechanism of their magic transformations, when the faceless stem cell turns into a blood cell or muscle tissue. We have not yet known to the end of the chemical language, on which the stem cell receives an order to transformation. This ignorance generates risks from the use of stem cells and holds back their active introduction into medical practice. Nevertheless, the successes are in the field of treatment of non-healing fractures in the elderly, as well as with reducing treatment after heart attacks and heart operations.

In Russia, a method for treating the retina burn is developed using human brain stem cells. If these cells enter into the eye, they will actively move to the burn area, located in the outer and internal layers of the damaged retina and stimulate the healing of the burn. The method developed a research team of scientists from the Moscow Research Institute of Eye Diseases. Gelmgolts MZ of the Russian Federation, Institute of Development Biology. N.K. Koltsova RAS, the Institute of Biology of the Gene Gena and the Scientific Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology of the RAM.

While we are at the stage of accumulation of knowledge about stem cells. The efforts of scientists are focused on studies, on the creation of infrastructure, in particular - banks of stem cells, the first of which in Russia became "hemabank". The cultivation of organs, the treatment of multiple sclerosis and neurodegenerative diseases is the future, although not so remote.

Bioinformatics

The number of knowledge, information is growing like a snowball. Knowing the principles of functioning of living systems, we are aware of the incredible complexity of the device of living matter, in which a variety of biochemical reactions are bugged with each other, and form confusing networks. Putting this "web" of life is possible only using modern mathematical methods for modeling processes in live systems.

That is why a new direction originated at the junction of biology and mathematics - bioinformatics, without which the work of biotechnologists is already unthinkable. Most of the bioinformational methods, of course, works on medicine, namely, to search for new medicinal connections. They can be sought based on the knowledge of the structure of the molecule, which is responsible for the development of a particular disease. If such a molecule is blocked by any substance selected with high accuracy, the course of the disease can be stopped. Bioinformatics allows you to detect a blocking molecule suitable for clinical use. If we know the target, say, the structure of the "pathogenic" protein, then using computer programs can simulate the chemical structure of the drug. This approach can significantly save time and resources that go to the bust and testing tens of thousands of chemical compounds.

Among the leaders of the creation of drugs with bioinformatics in Russia - the company "Himrar". In search of potential anticancer drugs, it is engaged in particular, with screening of many thousands of chemical compounds. The most powerful Russian scientific centers involved in bioinformatics are also included in the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since the 60s of the twentieth century, a unique scientific school, uniting biologists and mathematicians, was developing in the Novosibirsk Academgorodok. The main direction of the works of Novosibirsk bioinformatics is an analysis of the interaction of proteins inside the cells and the search for potential molecular targets for new drugs.

To understand the mechanism for the development of one or another disease, it is important to know which genes of thousands of people working in a sick cage are indeed responsible for the disease. This not at all easy task is complicated by the fact that genes, as a rule, do not operate, but only in conjunction with other genes. But how to take into account the contribution to the specific disease of other genes? And here bioinformatics comes to help physicians. Using mathematical algorithms, you can build a map on which the intersections of the paths show the interactions of genes. Such cards detect clusters of genes operating in a sick cell at different stages of the disease. This information is extremely important, for example, to select a cancer treatment strategy, depending on the stage of the disease.

Industrial biotechnology

Man used biotechnology from time immemorial. People made cheese from milk, quasilled cabbage for the winter, prepared funny drinks from everything that was fermented. All these are classic microbiological processes in which the main driving force is a microorganism, the smallest living system.

Today, the spectrum of tasks solved by biotechnology has incredibly expanded. We have already told about the genetic diagnosis of diseases, new vaccines and drugs obtained by biotechnology, genetically modified organisms. However, life throws out other tasks. Giant chemical production, on which we receive substances necessary to design a comfortable habitat (fibers, plastics, building materials and much more) today no longer seem so attractive as 60 years ago. They devour a lot of energy and resources (high pressure, temperature, catalysts from precious metals), they pollute the environment and occupy precious lands. Can biotechnologists offer a replacement here?

Yes they can. For example, genetically modified microorganisms that operate effective catalysts of industrial chemical processes. Such biocatalysts are created in the introduction of genetics and selection of microorganisms, for example, for a dangerous and dirty stage of obtaining a toxic agent of acryamide. Polymer make it polyacrylamide, used in the water purification, and in the production of diapers, and for the manufacture of coated paper, and for many other purposes. The biocatalyst allows the chemical reaction to obtain a monomer at room temperature, without the use of aggressive reagents and high pressure.

Before industrial use in Russia, the biocatalyst was brought by the efforts of the scientific team of CJSC Bioamide (Saratov) under the leadership of Sergey Voronin. The same team developed biotechnology for obtaining aspartic acid and created an import-substituting cardiac preparation "Asparkov L". The drug has already entered the market in Russia and Belarus. The Russian drug is not only cheaper imported analogues, but also, according to doctors, more efficient. The fact is that "Asparkov L" contains only one optical source of acid, the one that has therapeutic effects. And the western analogue, Panangin, is based on a mixture of two optical isomers, L and D, the second of which simply serves as ballast. The find of the Bioamide team is in that and it lies that they managed to divide these two difficult to separate isomers and put the process on the industrial basis.

It is possible that in the future, giant chemical compounds will disappear at all, and instead of them will remain small safe workshops that do not harm the environment, where microorganisms will work, producing all the necessary intermediate products for different industries. In addition, small green factories, whether it is microorganisms or plants, allow us to obtain usable substances that do not do in a chemical reactor. For example, a spider silk protein. Frame threads of adhesive networks that spiderman for their victims are more stronger than steel on a break. It would seem, put the spiders in the workshop and the pull of the protein threads. But spiders in one bank do not live - eat each other.

A beautiful decision was a team of scientists under the leadership of the doctor of biological sciences Vladimir Bogushi (Gosnia Genetics and Selections of Microorganisms) and Doctors of Biological Sciences Eleanora Peerbian (Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences). At first, the genes of the spider were allocated by the genes responsible for the synthesis of a spider web silk. Then these genes were embedded in yeast and tobacco cells. Both those and others began to produce the protein we need. As a result, the basis for the production technology of a unique and almost natural structural material, light and extremely durable, from which can be done, ropes, body armor and much more.

There are other problems. For example, a gigantic amount of waste. Biotechnology allow us to turn waste into revenues. Side Products Agriculture, Forest and Food Industry can be converted into methane, biogas suitable for heating and producing energy. And it is possible - in methanol and ethanol, the main components of biofuels.

Industrial applications of biotechnology are actively engaged in the Chemical Faculty of Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov. It has several laboratories occupied by the most different projects - from the creation of industrial biosensors to obtain enzymes for fine organic synthesis, from industrial waste utilization technologies before developing biofuel production methods.

Science, business, state

The achieved progress is the result of the combined efforts of biologists, chemists, doctors and other specialists working in the space of living systems. The relationship of different disciplines was fruitful. Of course, biotechnology is not a panacea to solve global problems, and a tool promising in great prospects with its proper use.

Today, the total volume of the biotechnological market in the world is 8 trillion. dollars. Biotechnologies are also leading on the volume of funding for research developments: only in the United States, state structures and private companies spend more than $ 30 billion annually.

Investments in science and technique will eventually bring economic fruits. But biotechnology will not be able to solve complex medical problems themselves. A favorable healthcare infrastructure and an industry structure that guarantees access to new diagnostic techniques, vaccines and drugs, plants with improved properties should be created. The effective communication system between science and business is also extremely important here. Finally, the absolutely necessary condition for the construction of an effective innovative sector of the economy is the interaction of scientific and commercial structures with the state.

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Sciences arise not by themselves, not because someone invents them just "out of interest." Any science appears as a result of the need to solve humanity of those or other tasks in the process of its development. Biology is no exception, it also arose in connection with the solution of very important problems for people. One of them has always been a deeper comprehension of wildlife processes associated with obtaining food products, i.e., knowledge of the characteristics of the life of plants and animals, their changes under the influence of man, ways to obtain a reliable and more rich harvest. The solution of this problem is one of the fundamental causes of biology development.

Another, no less important "spring" is the study of human biological characteristics. Man is a product of wildlife development. All processes of our vital activity are similar to those that occur in nature. And therefore, only a deep understanding of biological processes serves as a scientific foundation for medicine. The appearance of consciousness, meaning a giant step forward in the self-knowledge of matter, also can not be understood without deep research on wildlife at least in two directions - the occurrence and development of the brain as a body of thinking (so far the mystery of thinking remains unresolved) and the emergence of socialism, public image Life.

Increased food production and medicine development are important, but not the only problems that determine the development of biology as a science for thousands of years. Living nature is the source of many materials and products necessary for humanity. It is necessary to know their properties to properly use, know where to look for them in nature, how to get. In many ways, biology is provided in a large source of such knowledge. But this does not exhaust the importance of biological sciences.

In the XX century The population of the Earth has increased so much that the development of human society has become the determining factor in the development of the Earth's biosphere. To date, it turned out that wildlife is not only a source of food and many of the necessary products and materials, but also the necessary condition for the existence of humanity itself. Our relationships with it turned out to be much closer and vital than they thought even at the beginning of the XX century.

For example, the air seemed to be the same inexhaustible and constant resource of nature, as, say, sunlight. In fact, it is not. The qualitative composition of the atmosphere to which we are accustomed to, with its 20.95% oxygen and 0.03% of carbon dioxide - the derivative of the activities of living beings: respiration and photosynthesis of plants, oxidation of an omnant organic matter. Air oxygen arises only as a result of the vital activity of plants. The main plants of oxygen on Earth are tropical forests and ocean algae. But today, as observations show, the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is constantly increasing as a result of the release of a huge amount of carbon in the combustion of oil, gas, coal, wood, as well as other anthropogenic processes. From 1958 to 1980, the amount of carbon dioxide in the land atmosphere increased by 4%. By the end of the century, it may increase its maintenance by more than 10%. In the 70s. XX century The amount of oxygen entered into the atmosphere as a result of the vital activity of plants was evaluated in T / year, and the annual consumption of humanity is in T / year. This means that we already live already due to the reserves of oxygen accumulated in the past, for millions of years the evolution of living beings on the planet.

That water that we drink is more accurate - the purity of this water, its quality is also determined primarily in the wildlife. Our sewage treatment plants only complete the huge process that is invisible to us occur in nature: water in the soil or reservoir repeatedly passes through the bodies of the myriads of invertebrates, filtered by them and, having free from organic and inorganic impurities, becomes such as we know it in rivers, Lakes and keys.

Thus, high-quality composition and air, and water on Earth depends on the vital activity of living organisms. It should be added that the soil fertility is the basis of the crop - the result of the vital activity of living organisms in the soil: a huge number of bacteria, invertebrates, algae.

Humanity cannot exist without wildlife. Hence the need for us to keep it in "working condition".

Unfortunately, it is not so easy to do. As a result of the development of the whole surface of the planet, the development of agriculture, industry, cutting down forests, pollution of the mainland and oceans, an increasing number of plant species, mushrooms, animals disappears from the face of the earth. Disappeared view is impossible. It is a product of millions of years of evolution and has a unique gene pool - only to him inherent in the code of hereditary information, which determines the uniqueness of the properties of each species. According to some calculations, at the beginning of the 80- [GG. In the world, daily destroyed on average in one type of animals, by 2000 this tempo could increase to one species per hour. In our country, one kind of vertebrate animals disappears on average for 3.5 years. How to change this trend and return to an evolutionary justified path of constant increase in the overall "amount of life", and not its reduction? This problem concerns all mankind, but it is impossible to solve it without work biologists.

Figuratively speaking, modern biology is a huge, multi-storey building containing thousands of "rooms" - directions, disciplines, as well as independent sciences. The same listing may take tens of pages.

In the building of biology, there are four main "floors", corresponding to the fundamental levels of the organization of living matter. The first floor is molecular genetic. The object of studying the living here is the units of hereditary information (genes), their changes - mutations and the process of transmitting hereditary information itself. The second floor is ontogenetic, or the level of individual development. Events on this "floor" are still the least studied in biology. There is a mysterious process that determines the appearance in the right place at the right time what should appear during the normal development of each individual - legs or eyes in the animal, sheet or bark at the plant. The next "floor" is a population-species level. Elementary units at this level - population, i.e., relatively small, long-term groups of individuals of one species, within which the exchange of inheritance information occurs. Elementary phenomena here are irreversible changes in the genotypic composition of populations and ultimately the emergence of different devices (adaptations) and new species. At the last, fourth floor, processes in environmental systems of various scale are complex communities of many species, up to biosphere processes as a whole. Elementary structures of these communities - biogeocenoses, and elementary phenomena - the transition of biogeocenosis from one state of dynamic equilibrium to another, which is in the end to the change in the entire biosphere as a whole. At each level there are their own patterns, but events occurring on each of them are closely related to events on other levels.

In recent decades, molecular biology moved ahead (according to the number of scientists employed in this field, for the means to be released in different states to develop precisely this direction of research). Wonderful results are obtained, ranging from purely theoretical (deciphering the genetic code and the synthesis of first artificial genes) to practical (for example, the development of genetic engineering). Now the population biology is rapidly developing rapidly, which will successfully solve many modern problems associated with the increase in the production of food required for numerically growing humanity, preserving the rapidly disappearing types of living organisms, a number of problems associated with the grand mission of the transition to the management of evolutionary development and More species. Not far from the mountain and intensive development of the biosphere "floor" of research.

Do not think that biologists in classic areas - zoology, botanic, morphology, physiology, systematics and others are already done. There are still a lot of work here. Whether you know what is scientifically described (exact descriptions are given and the scientific name is given) less than half of the people inhabiting our planet - just about 4.5 million species, and on some calculations, no more than a third or even a quarter of them? Even in our country, located mainly in a temperate climatic zone that does not differ in the variety of organic forms, scientists open tens of new species annually (mainly invertebrates).

Are the research of paleontologists who are not fascinated by the scattered remnants of fossil organisms recreate the appearance of long-extinct animals, reconstruct the nature of the past epochs, find out the ways of development of the organic world?

And here researchers will wait for the most interesting finds. What sensational, for example, was the discovery of the oldest milking fossils in the rocks of the age of more than 3 billion years old! This means that there was already life on Earth. Not less fascinating and full discoveries of the work of genetics, zoologists, botany, biochemists, physiologists, etc.

We, people, are becoming more and more on earth, and we want to live better. Therefore, more and more raw materials are required for the development of society. From here there is a grand intention of the intensification of the entire national economy, including those of its industries that are associated with biology, primarily agriculture, forest and hunting-fishing, fish. But not only these industries. In our country, the microbiological industry has been created and successfully develops, for example, the microbiological industry is a huge sector of the national economy, giving food and feed (for livestock and birds, wildlife, etc.) products, the latest medicines and medicines and even helping to extract deeply in the depths of the Earth minerals. Another biological industry of national economy - biotechnology, based on the use of open physicochemical (molecular) biology of processes and structures, is already brings the first fruits, based on the use of open physicochemical (molecular) biologies and structures to create necessary humanity. On the development of the most important areas of biological sciences, the expansion of their practical connection with medicine and agriculture is stated in the "main directions of the economic and social development of the USSR for 1986-1990 and for the period up to 2000", adopted by the XXVII CPSU Congress.

Intensification means both tough savings of natural resources, their preservation in the interests of a developing society. The remarkable property of living natural resources is their renewability, the ability to restore as a result of the reproduction of living organisms. Therefore, in the intensification of the use of living natural resources, it is possible to ensure that they serve us indefinitely for a long time. This can be done in organizing this business, economical use and maintaining the living forces of nature. Many scientists are engaged in solving these problems. All these issues pay great attention to the party and government. In the CPSU program (new edition) recorded: "The party considers it necessary to strengthen the control over environmental management, which is wider deploying environmental education."

When the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating this book, one of the main tasks set in front of the authors team was to tell about the important and interesting features of modern biology, which was already able to achieve in different areas and what unresolved problems face biologists. We wanted without repeating the textbook, but relying on the knowledge that the school program on biology gives, show, what biologists in laboratories and expeditions work. There are also many essays about the outstanding biologists of our country and other countries. It is thanks to the work of our predecessors in science we possess today's knowledge.

A few words about how to read this book. In the text you often encounter the words allocated in italics. This means that there is a special article in the dictionary on this concept. Focusing in the content of the dictionary will help you the alphabetic pointer placed at the end of the book. Be sure to look at the list of references recommended for reading.

We hope that the "encyclopedic dictionary of a young biologist" will help you learn a lot of new and fascinating about the wildlife, find answers to the questions you are interested in, will awaken and will develop interest in the wonderful science about live - biology.

Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Alexander Liver described "Lente.ru" the most promising areas of physics and related sciences following the results of the largest premium for young scientists National Blavatnik Award. Now liver - Leading Researcher and Scientific Secretary of the Mathematical Institute named after V.A. Steklov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, he was educated at the Faculty of Physics in Moscow State University, he worked at Princeton University and became one of the first Russians who received the Bvautnik Prize in 2009.

main topic

Photo: Jens Kalaene / ZB / Global Look

The photonics explores the possibility of using light for transmission, storage, information processing, micro-lectures (cells, macromolecules) and quantum systems (individual atoms). Based on photonic technology can accelerate or make energy transmission, storage and processing of information. This is important, for example, for data centers that are now the largest consumers of energy in the United States. Modulated light and artificially created materials with special, non-nature optical properties - the basis of laser and photochemistry, as well as such interesting things as "invisible raincoats" and optical tweezers.

Practical application of photonics

Photo: Tachi Laboratory, The University Of Tokyo

Metamaterials are a new class of artificial materials with special optical properties that allow to hide objects to make them invisible. Theoretically, such materials were first studied by the Soviet physicist Viktor Velgo.

Currently, there is an active development of such materials. For example, in 2009, the physics of invisible carpets for infrared light.

Optical tweezers - a tool that allows manipulated microscopic objects with laser light, for example, sort and move individual cells, protein molecules.

The premium established by the American billionaire of Russian origin by Leonid Blavatnik is awarded to researchers working in the United States under 42 years. The amount is 250 thousand dollars - allows us to consider it a peculiar analogue of the Nobel Prize for young scientists. In the United States, the laureates of this year were honored, and a symposium was held on the most promising scientific trends of modernity.

Nominants

The prize is awarded in three nominations: "Life sciences" (biology, medicine, neurobiology, etc.), "Physical and Engineering Sciences", "Chemistry". In 2015, about 300 nominees from 147 American institutions and universities were launched. For each of the disciplines, they selected about ten finalists. Then one laureate was chosen from each group of finalists. All three laureate of this year are university of California: Edward Cheng (Edward Chang, University of San Francisco, Specialization of Life Science), LED Jafar (Syed Jafar, University of Irvina, Physical Sciences) and Christopher Chang (Christopher Chang, Berkel University, Chemistry) .

Now a new approach is formed in the photonics to control quantum systems, that is, individual atoms or molecules. (This is the main topic of researched by Alexander Bechechen - approx. "Tape.ru"). Traditionally, particles are controlled by a laser with a variable radiation intensity. New methods are used for this environment. In traditional systems, its influence will never be eliminated, and it has a destructive effect on atomic and molecular quantum systems. However, now the effect of the external environment is taken into account and is used to manage these systems.

Quantum system management is used in controlling the speed of chemical reactions with a laser to increase the output of the desired product of the reaction and selective chemical break in complex molecules, separation of isotopes using lasers or non-coherent optical radiation. Quantum management is also used in quantum calculations, which are still investigated, and in practice - to increase the speed of magnetic resonance tomographs.

Quantum simulators and new materials

Quantum materials can be used in quantum memory devices to create high-temperature superconductivity, biodiagnosis based on quantum dots, supercapacitors based on laser-induced graphene.

To simulate biological molecules, crystals, atomic nuclei and other complex systems, it is required to calculate the quantum dynamics of a large number of particles, which is absolutely not available to modern computing devices. Quantum simulators - model quantum systems, tuning parameters of which allows you to model other complex systems that are practical interest. In fact, quantum simulators are analog quantum computers.

Medical and biotechnology

Photo: Robson Fernandjes / Estadao Conteudo / Global Look

In the field of life, scientists pay the development of telemedicine to the development of telecommunications technologies, such as smartphones, together with various medical sensors for remote diagnosis of diseases without a personal visit to the doctor. This direction was the most visible example of examples of commercialization of scientific developments.

However, from the promising areas of neuronuk - Optogenetics, studying the control of neurons using light pulses. The use of fiber-optic light guides and photosensitive proteins allows to achieve high accuracy of impact on nerve cells. Due to the aiming activation and shutdown of different brain zones, Optogenetics in recent years has been produced by a real revolution in the studies of the nervous system.

Mathematical physics

Modern theoretical models require a complex mathematical apparatus. Although the Nobel Prize for this discipline is not awarded, but there are less well-known, as well as nominations in close areas. For example, Clement Hongler (Clement Hongler) became the winner of the 2014 Blavator Regional Prize. It is noteworthy that he received a PhD degree under the leadership of the Russian mathematics and the laureate of the Fieldsovskaya Prize Stanislav Smirnov. Hongler reported on new accurate results in the ising model - a mathematical model used to describe the process of magnetization of materials. The Ising model also serves as the basis for the largest D-Wave quantum computing devices produced by D-Wave Systems. I will make a reservation that discussions continue about to which extent these computers should be considered quantum.

The works of Hongler are at the junction of statistical mechanics, probability theory, comprehensive analysis and quantum field theory. It was obtained by strict results of the study of the Ising model, including in such an important area, as the establishment of the connection of the critical model of Ising with the conformal theory of the Belavin field, Polyakova and Zavolodchikov - a universal theory that serves to describe various critical phenomena in physics, that is, situations When a slight change in some parameter, for example, temperature leads to the most radical changes in the behavior of the physical system.

Also interesting are the directions related to wandering planets that are not related to any star, and the creation of new observation instruments, which in the near future will be commissioned to search and research the planets outside the solar system. They will help to significantly expand our knowledge of such planets, explore the chemical composition of their atmospheres, determine the presence of organic substances and look for life there.

Commercialization of research

Modern trend - commercialization of scientific discoveries. At the event dedicated to the aforementioned award, almost two dozen companies in the field of medical diagnostics, energy storage, data analysis were founded by the premium laureates. Also develops the Harvard Center for the Expeditated Development Biomedical Accelerator (Harvard Blavnik Biomedical Accelerator).

The level of modern science makes it possible to relatively quickly move from fundamental studies to applied, and then apply scientific discoveries in commercial products.