A scientific journal instead of a school one
How Russian schoolchildren are published in international journals
Nadezhda Markina, "Newspaper.Ru"
Even a student can publish a scientific publication in an international journal. And this is despite the fact that some Russian scientists complain that it is very difficult for them to publish in reputable journals: allegedly, editors are putting obstacles in the way of Russians.
Two Moscow schoolgirls became co-authors of an article published in the prestigious scientific journal PLOS ONE (Leyn et al., Comparative Genomics of Transcriptional Regulation of Methionine Metabolism in Proteobacteria). Tatiana Kholina was a graduate of the 11th grade at the time of the work, and now she is a student of the Faculty of Bioinformatics and Bioengineering of Moscow State University, Sofya Sherstneva is still studying in the 11th grade. The article was the result of their scientific work carried out at the summer School of Molecular and Theoretical Biology, held with the support of the Dynasty Foundation.
An article in an international scientific journal with the participation of Russian schoolchildren is far from an ordinary event. "Newspaper.Ru" talked with the head of the work, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor Mikhail Gelfand, Deputy Director of the Institute of Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
– Tell us how it happened that the school scientific work resulted in an article in an international journal?
– This work was started at the Second Summer School in Pushchino in 2013, and then completed in Moscow: it is difficult to do a full-fledged scientific work in two weeks. But a significant part was done at school. This is not the first article that came out of this school, but the third. Two publications were the result of the very first school. And I think that it is not the last, now, as far as I know, we have more articles on the materials of the 2014 school in the work.
– Who conducts the summer School of Molecular and Theoretical Biology and how is it organized?
– This is a school supported by the Dynasty Foundation, and its main organizer and ideological inspirer is Fyodor Kondrashov. He studied and worked in the USA, now runs a laboratory in Barcelona, but for some reason considers it his duty to develop biological education in Russia. Last year our laboratory participated in the Second school, this year it was the Third, and in 2015, if nothing bad happens, it will be the Fourth. There are several laboratories involved in schools: there are experimental laboratories that work on the basis of Pushchina institutes, and there are bioinformatics laboratories, in which schoolchildren work simply on computers.
Children get to school not so much the strongest, but interested and ready to work. In experimental laboratories, the work is more collective, there are several people working on the same project and learning different experimental techniques. And in bioinformatics laboratories, the work is more individual. Each pair of schoolchildren has their own task, and the laboratory staff, mostly graduate students, work with them, explain something to them, teach them. Bioinformatics is easier in this regard. Experimental work requires more time, and our science is very concentrated: as long as I sat, I got as much. Our students work very intensively.
– Tell us a little about the essence of the work. Why was the regulation of methionine metabolism studied?
– This is the traditional activity of our group – a comparative analysis of transcription regulation. Methionine has a beautiful regulation system, there are many different mechanisms. In general, the task is chosen so that it can really be done in a reasonable time. Proving Fermat's theorem or solving the problem of the origin of life with children is wrong. It is important for schoolchildren to get a result that can be presented at a poster session, which is necessarily held at the end of school. And then my colleagues looked a little wider and then finished it up to a publishable look.
– From a comparison of the methionine regulation systems in bacteria, we can conclude about their evolution, right?
– Yes, of course. Regulatory pathways generally evolve rapidly, and this particular system is mobile even in comparison with similar ones; that's why we chose it. Ultimately, it turned out that our results led to the not entirely trivial conclusion that regulatory systems associated with the formation of special RNA structures, the so-called RNA switches, can arise quite quickly during evolution: in narrow groups of bacteria, we see unique and, therefore, young structures. And this is quite a fundamental conclusion.
About the details of his work "To the newspaper.Ru" told Sofya Sherstneva, a student of school No. 463.
"The metabolism of methionine in bacteria takes place under the action of regulators. There are such regulatory proteins, the activity of which determines whether a particular gene will work. They sense the presence of certain molecules in the environment and, depending on this, they bind or do not bind to certain sections of DNA that have a certain structure," she said.
According to her, in the process of work, schoolchildren and scientists considered regulatory proteins MetJ and MetR. They searched for binding sites and determined the functions of genes in specific bacterial genomes, constructing rules for searching. It was the methods of bioinformatics that made it possible to conduct these studies.
"Tatiana and Semyon were engaged in the MetR regulator, and I worked under the guidance of Inna with the MetJ regulator. As a result, we built a tree of bacteria in which MetJ is the regulator of metabolism, restored the methionine metabolism scheme taking into account the obtained data on regulators and compiled a comparative table for all taxonomic groups of bacteria," Sofia said.
In her opinion, the most interesting thing is that no one has ever done this research before, and the feeling of involvement in serious scientific work inspired all participants of the school and created a unique atmosphere. "It was a great pleasure for me to work in the same team with famous scientists," Sofia continues. – I realized that these people themselves are extremely passionate about their work and have an incredible ability to involve schoolchildren and students in their work. A very open and sincere atmosphere made us friends. I am happy that my first experience of team project work was so interesting and successful."
After graduation, Sofia is going to enroll in MIPT, and in the future, perhaps, to engage in bioinformatics, because "in the modern world, it is with the "mixing of sciences" that great discoveries are born."
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru10.12.2014