Innovation Success Stories - Part II
Western venture capitalists repeatedly declared their genuine interest in Russian scientists and researchers but had no dealings with them, at least not in Russia itself. Things seem to have changed this time.
Jul 07, 2004
Western venture capitalists repeatedly declared their genuine interest in Russian scientists and researchers but had no dealings with them, at least not in Russia itself. Many good innovation projects failed to become investment projects. Things seem to have changed this time.
Biochips, not labs
The Immunoglobulin-Based Biochips project was recognized as Most Promising Project. The creation of biochips - micro-units screening for a vast array of human diseases - is a revolutionary achievement in biotechnology of recent years. A biochip in the form of a tiny plastic plate (5-10 mm across) holding up to several thousand different micro-tests, enables medical practitioners to detect several thousand pathogens, allergens, carcinogens, biologically active substances from medicines to drugs, and genetic defects all at the same time. The technology of protein biochips could replace entire immunology laboratories and increase the productivity of most diagnostic methods by thousands or even tens of thousand times, radically reducing the cost of medical tests.
Although the first protein biochips were created back in early 1990s, researchers began to deal with them most actively in the last three years. Scientists from the Hematology Research Center at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences in conjunction with the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics are working on a set of devices that produce biochips and monitor their quality, as well as instruments and software for reading the biochip.
One of the innovators' main scientific achievements is a method for applying protein solution to a matrix. Instead of the usual application technique by tiny, automatic arms, the project proposes the electric evaporation method. It enables scientists to manufacture thousands of microchips at once and save on both protein solution and production time (1 mcl of the solution is sprayed onto 100,000 points for 30 seconds). In addition these microchips are much smaller than existing ones, which would reduce the costs of producing and reading the chips by several times. For the time being, developers are focusing on biochips to detect infections of the urethra and genitals, as this market is huge. Given the value of biochips and biochip-related services, the outlay for production, market research, and advertising could be repaid in two years. In fact, the potential applications for biochips go far beyond medicine. The chips can be used in environmental studies to detect hazardous substances or in criminal investigations to find drugs, poisons, or explosives and for personal identification purposes. After the project presentation at the competition, the promotion fund decided to finance it as part of the Start Program, and AFK Sistema awarded it a special bonus.
No more radiation
The project Clean Technology for Generating Nuclear Power was the winner in The White Book's Best Project category. Scientists from two of Russia's leading research centers (United Institute of Nuclear Research in Dubna and MIFI) are involved in the project. High-level radioactive waste is the main drawback of modern nuclear power. Environmentally safe disposal and treatment of this waste involve huge costs. So, an ideal solution to this problem would be a nuclear fission reaction that does not produce any ecologically hazardous byproducts at all.
Though the theory of creating reactions of this kind is still in its infancy, a substantial clarification of this process has occurred over the last decade. According to the project's authors, it could potentially become the foundation for further practical developments. Identification by the scientists of a limited number of ways of nuclear fission (modes) is the fundamental physical basis for today's research in this field. The most interesting thing is that some of these ways (dividing modes) are distinctive in that the nuclear debris after atoms split is remarkably safe and quickly turns into stable nuclei. The participants in this winning project, who laid the foundations for the original cluster-molecular model of nuclear fission, were the first to pay attention to this aspect of multimodal fission.
The key question for the next round of experiments is how to make sure that only safe modes "settle" in the reactor. Developing the technology and constructing a pilot plant where the new approach becomes a reality are still a long way off. According to the most optimistic estimates, this may happen at the earliest in 2010 but no one expects White Book projects to bring immediate return. Should scientists succeed, the total economic effect from the technology could easily amount to tens of billions of dollars.
Trillion cycles per second
Russian scientists at the St. Petersburg hi-tech company Tidex have mastered the terahertz electromagnetic spectrum (1 THz is equal to 1012 cycles per second) between SHF and the infrared range. It is the last electromagnetic spectrum untouched by man, which won the Tidex team the Expert Magazine Prize for Technological Fantasy. According to Grigory Kropotov, General Director of Tidex, until now the problem has been that all existing terahertz sources could not be readjusted and emitted waves in too narrow a range. Nikolai Zinoviev, the scientific supervisor of the project, has developed a layout where a narrow laser beam of terahertz radiation runs through a special crystal and fans out. Thanks to this technology and the absorption signal processing principles developed at Tidex, researchers can determine both an object's absorption capacity and the effective wave dispersion. As a result, this terahertz system possesses significantly greater data content, sensitivity, resolution, and operating speed than its analogues in other ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. For instance, medical X-rays could be replaced with a harmless terahertz option. Security systems to detect radioactive substances, bacteria, and explosives are another possible application of these devices.
Oxygen for cancer patients
OAO Tekhsnabexport's prize for the Best Project Using the Nuclear Industry's Innovation Potential went to scientists from the V.G. Khlopin Radium Institute. The scientists from St Petersburg improved the rectifying technology of isotope separation and developed mass production of isotopes. The essence of the technology is sedimentation of H2O molecules with increased number of atoms of heavy oxygen-18 (oxygen usually has an atomic weight of 16) on the plant's walls due to multiple sublimation of vapors of common water via special catalysts. The innovations involved monitoring systems, which are now controlled electronically, and catalyst improvement.
Oxygen's heavy isotope is desperately needed for the early detection of cancer using positron-emission tomography (PET). PET is based on a special medication containing fluorine-18 administered to the patient. Cancer cells are especially active in consuming this substance, and the radioactive decay of fluorine taking place inside the cells releases a positron. The latter immediately collides with an electron, producing an energy flash detected by sensors. This method enables doctors to detect even a single cancerous cell.
In the US alone, 93,000 PET tests were carried out in 1998. In 2008, they are estimated to reach about two million (the same amount will be conducted in Europe and in Japan). Over the last five years, demand for oxygen isotopes has so exceeded supply that prices have nearly doubled (to $110 per gram). In the next four years, demand will triple (from 300 to 900 kg a year). The project will make scientists from the Khlopin Institute among the top 5 global manufacturers of this lifesaving product.
Nano-shavings
Nanotechnology has developed rapidly over the last decade. Researchers have attempted to use nanostructures to create new devices and materials ranging from tiny transistors with extremely low heat emission and energy consumption to superfine needles and ultra-strong bulletproof vests. Yet, as it turns out, it is not at all easy to make nanostructures with the desired characteristics. Nanotubes, for instance, refuse to come out identical. One and the same production process made tubes too long or too short, too thick or too thin.
When a thin layer is shaved off a block of wood, it immediately coils into a tube, the diameter strongly depending on the layer's thickness and the relative resilience of the wood's various layers. This analogy helped Viktor Prints, a scientist and nanotechnologist at the Novosibirsk Academic Campus, make nanotubes of the desired diameter and size. Stacking up monatomic films of gallium arsenide, indium arsenide and aluminum arsenide, he fastened them to a substrate, which resulted in a sandwich with aluminum arsenide as the filling. Then, he firmly joined gallium and indium arsenide films and etched the aluminum arsenide using a strong reagent. The plates of gallium-indium arsenide were released from the substrate and coiled into tubes by themselves. After that, Prints figured out how to make corrugated surfaces from indium arsenide. The substrate was etched selectively, and the upper indium arsenide film layer bent into the desired shape by itself. Using other techniques, it was possible to make even more complex structures of any shape - for example, nano-cones or ultra-flexible and ultra-strong nano-springs.
When presenting his project, Prints described a miniature ultra-sensitive anemometer for missiles, conducting fibers (for example, for making chips sewn in a tissue), and many other devices that seem fantastic at present. However, judging by how venture investors at the competition were swarming around the nanotechnologist during the break, these nano-shavings may mean big business in the very near future.
A dreadfully abrasive compound
Each cubic meter of air in industrial areas contains more than 140 million dust particles. At that, over 80% are smaller than 2 micrometers in size and easily pass through the filters of compressed air systems. Moisture mixed with machine oil vapors easily pass through filters as well. All this produces a dreadfully abrasive compound. Therefore these systems are outfitted with expensive and cumbersome condensate traps, baffles, separators, drip pans, and filters. Specialists from RoSKom in Krasnodar have developed a centrifugal vortex gas-liquid separator to replace all these devices. Separation occurs due to centrifugal forces generated along the rotation of gas flow. This results in high efficiency dust and moisture removal among separating units (up to 99.99%). Unlike its competitors, the Krasnodar separator doesn't require electricity, but uses energy generated by the compressor. The separator doesn't have disposable filter elements, nor does it have any rubbing and rotating components.
Commercial tests of the separator demonstrated that it could also solve the problem of separating gas-liquid flow into oil and gas fractions (gas condensate, moisture, and mechanical impurities are removed so effectively from the gas produced along with oil that this gas can be sold or used at electric power stations). The separator is able to pump methane out of a mine and provide a mining town with what amounts to free fuel. The RoSKom project won the award for The Best Industrial Innovation and received a special prize of the Russian Association of Venture Investment.
Elena Rytsareva and Tigran Oganesyan assisted in the preparation of this article.
Biochips, not labs
The Immunoglobulin-Based Biochips project was recognized as Most Promising Project. The creation of biochips - micro-units screening for a vast array of human diseases - is a revolutionary achievement in biotechnology of recent years. A biochip in the form of a tiny plastic plate (5-10 mm across) holding up to several thousand different micro-tests, enables medical practitioners to detect several thousand pathogens, allergens, carcinogens, biologically active substances from medicines to drugs, and genetic defects all at the same time. The technology of protein biochips could replace entire immunology laboratories and increase the productivity of most diagnostic methods by thousands or even tens of thousand times, radically reducing the cost of medical tests.
Although the first protein biochips were created back in early 1990s, researchers began to deal with them most actively in the last three years. Scientists from the Hematology Research Center at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences in conjunction with the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics are working on a set of devices that produce biochips and monitor their quality, as well as instruments and software for reading the biochip.
One of the innovators' main scientific achievements is a method for applying protein solution to a matrix. Instead of the usual application technique by tiny, automatic arms, the project proposes the electric evaporation method. It enables scientists to manufacture thousands of microchips at once and save on both protein solution and production time (1 mcl of the solution is sprayed onto 100,000 points for 30 seconds). In addition these microchips are much smaller than existing ones, which would reduce the costs of producing and reading the chips by several times. For the time being, developers are focusing on biochips to detect infections of the urethra and genitals, as this market is huge. Given the value of biochips and biochip-related services, the outlay for production, market research, and advertising could be repaid in two years. In fact, the potential applications for biochips go far beyond medicine. The chips can be used in environmental studies to detect hazardous substances or in criminal investigations to find drugs, poisons, or explosives and for personal identification purposes. After the project presentation at the competition, the promotion fund decided to finance it as part of the Start Program, and AFK Sistema awarded it a special bonus.
No more radiation
The project Clean Technology for Generating Nuclear Power was the winner in The White Book's Best Project category. Scientists from two of Russia's leading research centers (United Institute of Nuclear Research in Dubna and MIFI) are involved in the project. High-level radioactive waste is the main drawback of modern nuclear power. Environmentally safe disposal and treatment of this waste involve huge costs. So, an ideal solution to this problem would be a nuclear fission reaction that does not produce any ecologically hazardous byproducts at all.
Though the theory of creating reactions of this kind is still in its infancy, a substantial clarification of this process has occurred over the last decade. According to the project's authors, it could potentially become the foundation for further practical developments. Identification by the scientists of a limited number of ways of nuclear fission (modes) is the fundamental physical basis for today's research in this field. The most interesting thing is that some of these ways (dividing modes) are distinctive in that the nuclear debris after atoms split is remarkably safe and quickly turns into stable nuclei. The participants in this winning project, who laid the foundations for the original cluster-molecular model of nuclear fission, were the first to pay attention to this aspect of multimodal fission.
The key question for the next round of experiments is how to make sure that only safe modes "settle" in the reactor. Developing the technology and constructing a pilot plant where the new approach becomes a reality are still a long way off. According to the most optimistic estimates, this may happen at the earliest in 2010 but no one expects White Book projects to bring immediate return. Should scientists succeed, the total economic effect from the technology could easily amount to tens of billions of dollars.
Trillion cycles per second
Russian scientists at the St. Petersburg hi-tech company Tidex have mastered the terahertz electromagnetic spectrum (1 THz is equal to 1012 cycles per second) between SHF and the infrared range. It is the last electromagnetic spectrum untouched by man, which won the Tidex team the Expert Magazine Prize for Technological Fantasy. According to Grigory Kropotov, General Director of Tidex, until now the problem has been that all existing terahertz sources could not be readjusted and emitted waves in too narrow a range. Nikolai Zinoviev, the scientific supervisor of the project, has developed a layout where a narrow laser beam of terahertz radiation runs through a special crystal and fans out. Thanks to this technology and the absorption signal processing principles developed at Tidex, researchers can determine both an object's absorption capacity and the effective wave dispersion. As a result, this terahertz system possesses significantly greater data content, sensitivity, resolution, and operating speed than its analogues in other ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. For instance, medical X-rays could be replaced with a harmless terahertz option. Security systems to detect radioactive substances, bacteria, and explosives are another possible application of these devices.
Oxygen for cancer patients
OAO Tekhsnabexport's prize for the Best Project Using the Nuclear Industry's Innovation Potential went to scientists from the V.G. Khlopin Radium Institute. The scientists from St Petersburg improved the rectifying technology of isotope separation and developed mass production of isotopes. The essence of the technology is sedimentation of H2O molecules with increased number of atoms of heavy oxygen-18 (oxygen usually has an atomic weight of 16) on the plant's walls due to multiple sublimation of vapors of common water via special catalysts. The innovations involved monitoring systems, which are now controlled electronically, and catalyst improvement.
Oxygen's heavy isotope is desperately needed for the early detection of cancer using positron-emission tomography (PET). PET is based on a special medication containing fluorine-18 administered to the patient. Cancer cells are especially active in consuming this substance, and the radioactive decay of fluorine taking place inside the cells releases a positron. The latter immediately collides with an electron, producing an energy flash detected by sensors. This method enables doctors to detect even a single cancerous cell.
In the US alone, 93,000 PET tests were carried out in 1998. In 2008, they are estimated to reach about two million (the same amount will be conducted in Europe and in Japan). Over the last five years, demand for oxygen isotopes has so exceeded supply that prices have nearly doubled (to $110 per gram). In the next four years, demand will triple (from 300 to 900 kg a year). The project will make scientists from the Khlopin Institute among the top 5 global manufacturers of this lifesaving product.
Nano-shavings
Nanotechnology has developed rapidly over the last decade. Researchers have attempted to use nanostructures to create new devices and materials ranging from tiny transistors with extremely low heat emission and energy consumption to superfine needles and ultra-strong bulletproof vests. Yet, as it turns out, it is not at all easy to make nanostructures with the desired characteristics. Nanotubes, for instance, refuse to come out identical. One and the same production process made tubes too long or too short, too thick or too thin.
When a thin layer is shaved off a block of wood, it immediately coils into a tube, the diameter strongly depending on the layer's thickness and the relative resilience of the wood's various layers. This analogy helped Viktor Prints, a scientist and nanotechnologist at the Novosibirsk Academic Campus, make nanotubes of the desired diameter and size. Stacking up monatomic films of gallium arsenide, indium arsenide and aluminum arsenide, he fastened them to a substrate, which resulted in a sandwich with aluminum arsenide as the filling. Then, he firmly joined gallium and indium arsenide films and etched the aluminum arsenide using a strong reagent. The plates of gallium-indium arsenide were released from the substrate and coiled into tubes by themselves. After that, Prints figured out how to make corrugated surfaces from indium arsenide. The substrate was etched selectively, and the upper indium arsenide film layer bent into the desired shape by itself. Using other techniques, it was possible to make even more complex structures of any shape - for example, nano-cones or ultra-flexible and ultra-strong nano-springs.
When presenting his project, Prints described a miniature ultra-sensitive anemometer for missiles, conducting fibers (for example, for making chips sewn in a tissue), and many other devices that seem fantastic at present. However, judging by how venture investors at the competition were swarming around the nanotechnologist during the break, these nano-shavings may mean big business in the very near future.
A dreadfully abrasive compound
Each cubic meter of air in industrial areas contains more than 140 million dust particles. At that, over 80% are smaller than 2 micrometers in size and easily pass through the filters of compressed air systems. Moisture mixed with machine oil vapors easily pass through filters as well. All this produces a dreadfully abrasive compound. Therefore these systems are outfitted with expensive and cumbersome condensate traps, baffles, separators, drip pans, and filters. Specialists from RoSKom in Krasnodar have developed a centrifugal vortex gas-liquid separator to replace all these devices. Separation occurs due to centrifugal forces generated along the rotation of gas flow. This results in high efficiency dust and moisture removal among separating units (up to 99.99%). Unlike its competitors, the Krasnodar separator doesn't require electricity, but uses energy generated by the compressor. The separator doesn't have disposable filter elements, nor does it have any rubbing and rotating components.
Commercial tests of the separator demonstrated that it could also solve the problem of separating gas-liquid flow into oil and gas fractions (gas condensate, moisture, and mechanical impurities are removed so effectively from the gas produced along with oil that this gas can be sold or used at electric power stations). The separator is able to pump methane out of a mine and provide a mining town with what amounts to free fuel. The RoSKom project won the award for The Best Industrial Innovation and received a special prize of the Russian Association of Venture Investment.
Elena Rytsareva and Tigran Oganesyan assisted in the preparation of this article.