Youth Science
Anastasia Prikhodko: "Science should be fun and interesting!"
Ekaterina Vinogradova, "Russian Reporter"
A scientist is usually presented as a man in a white coat, with tousled hair (preferably gray) and necessarily wearing glasses. Anastasia Prikhodko corresponds only to the last stereotype: you are involuntarily surprised to realize that a fragile girl with a short haircut and a plush keychain on her keys is an innovator. She herself does not like this name: "Too pretentious." Anastasia is a participant in a huge innovative project whose goal is to defeat old age. Whether it turns out or not depends on hundreds of people like her.
Photo: Nadia Andreenko
We walk quickly along a narrow corridor with peeling walls. The lighting is poor, the doors of laboratories and closed safes flash to the right and left. Anastasia's blue sweater, blue trousers and the haste with which she rushes forward make her look like a neuron transmitting an impulse to the brain. I manage to notice the inscription "Remove the fuck" on one of the compartments, but I don't have time to ask if I understood its meaning correctly: the "neuron" stops abruptly. We have reached the "brain" – the laboratory where Anastasia works. Smiling mysteriously, the girl opens the door.
– As in many "labs", everything is modest, although the equipment is quite new and good.
The room, comparable in size to a school laboratory, accommodates a desk with a microscope, a cabinet filled with test tubes, bottles and cases, a refrigerator and some large incomprehensible unit with a rectangular window. Cardboard boxes and crumpled cellophane are strewn everywhere.
"The cells I work with live on this mattress," Anastasia takes out a transparent container shaped like a bottle of cologne. Inside is a thin layer of yellowish liquid. These are cells.
– All cells live on the substrate to which they attach. When the cells occupy the entire substrate, we place them on the plates, where, in fact, we conduct experiments.
The die is a flat container with round compartments for cells. And the refrigerator, it turns out, is not a refrigerator at all, but an air thermostat. It maintains comfortable conditions for capricious cells that die quickly in the open air.
Anastasia approaches the "incomprehensible unit", which begins to hum and squeak like a microwave. A light comes on in the glass window. Inside there is a full–fledged work surface.
– My main task is to cause inflammation in the cells, then to see how it can be leveled. Now I'll turn on the laminar… Air flows through a large filter at the top and completely sterilizes the surface – we only work with cells here so that they do not overgrow with bacteria. Otherwise, everything will go to waste: dirty cells cannot be used," Anastasia lifts the laminar glass, puts on elongated medical gloves and abundantly pours transparent liquid on her hands.
– Before we start working, we always wipe ourselves with alcohol. Of course, we don't drink it, we don't smell it – it's technical," Anastasia laughs loudly and, grabbing a pipette that looks like a miniature jackhammer, begins to wield it with incredible speed. – The more you can do with your hands – not only with your head, but also with your hands, the more valuable you are an expert. Modern science has moved to the level where it is impossible to do without technical skill for small work. You need to do everything quickly and not spoil anything. Now I am adding to the cells, well, with a time-adjusted, inflammatory inducer lipopolysaccharide. Then I'll see when it causes inflammation: in two hours, in four. Recently, we found that SkQ reduces inflammation in cells if it is poured 24 hours before lipopolysaccharide.
– Are SkQ the famous "Skulachev ions"?
- Yes. And these ions drag antioxidants into the mitochondria. Mitochondria is the main organelle of the cell, it is responsible for energy generation. In addition, free radicals are formed in it – reactive oxygen species. If the amount of free radicals goes beyond the norm, they oxidize everything, including DNA. A chain reaction begins: mitochondria become ill to live – bad cells, bad cells – bad tissues, well, tissues are bad – bad for a person. And Skulachev ions neutralize reactive oxygen species, and everyone is happy!
– They say that a cure for aging will be invented on the basis of Skulachev ions…
– In the future. In 20-30 years we will give the final answer. But purely formally, we will not be able to claim that we have a cure for aging until aging is considered a disease. We will have to treat everything separately: first dry eye syndrome and cataracts, then arthritis, and so on. When there are many patented medicines for various diseases associated with old age in the project list, we will say that a panacea has been found. The main goal of the project is for a person who started drinking SkQ at fifty to keep feeling good at seventy, feeling fifty.
– So, everything seems to be fine, – Anastasia dials the password several times to turn off the laminar. – Beauty, milota!
We enter a long room with office desks around the perimeter. Computers, folders with documents – it doesn't look like a laboratory anymore.
– This is just a super device! My love to the grave! – Anastasia leads me to a gray machine that somewhat resembles a coffee machine.
– Flow cytofluorimeter! – the girl announces in the voice of a magician. – He is absolutely awesome, he knows how to measure cells and looks at every cell! – Anastasia is actively gesticulating, filling the whole space with herself. – He has a thin, thin channel inside, through which the cells pass. And he can look at each cell: evaluate its size, structure, check for the presence of antibodies. Just a cutie, honey, I love him very much! Gold, not a device.
– Where do the cells you work with come from?
– We use only cancer cells, their cultures have been conducted for a long time - this is an absolutely commercial product, we just buy them. Cancer cells live indefinitely. There are famous HeLa cells, which were taken in 1951 from a woman suffering from cervical cancer. She, of course, died, and the cells still serve for the benefit of science. A fun way to perpetuate yourself!
– Are you planning to conduct tests on living organisms?
– In general, yes, but I probably won't be doing it. A long time ago I worked with rats, but I didn't like it terribly, because you need to kill all the animals yourself, regardless of the experience that is being conducted. This is done in order to study everything in a complex: suddenly we injected SkQ, cured, for example, the liver, and in the lungs – a complete achtung?.. Once we isolated mitochondria from rats. It was very funny because… No, actually, it was never funny, but very sad. Mitochondria are isolated from the liver – there are most of them there. And the liver should be good – this means that rats cannot be poisoned with any poisons. I had to take a live rat and cut off its head with scissors. Well, you can imagine what a nightmare it is.
– Is science included in your future plans?
– A difficult question. Science is insanely interesting. It's great when you wake up in the morning and you want to come to the lab and do a lot of things. Then you leave at 9 pm and think: "So, I'm leaving early, I'll come early tomorrow, I'll have more time." Science is my vocation, addiction is like a drug. Once you set up an experiment with your own hands, got the result, realized that this result is significant – everything. You are lost to society and now you will conduct experiments and get these results endlessly. I would like to stay in science, but a huge, very significant minus is funding. The scholarship of a graduate student is 6 thousand, you can't live in Moscow with this money. The Skulachev project also pays me a salary, but this is a small amount, about a scholarship. You have to earn extra money, and part-time work takes time away from science itself, which has a bad effect on experiments. That's why I'm at a crossroads.
– And I thought that the state invests a lot of money in science and nanotechnology. It turns out that scientists do not feel this?
– We absolutely don't feel it. There is Skolkovo, which has been invested in for many years. But it's a complete mess, just like in the whole country, actually: nothing has been built yet! My classmate is officially studying at the Skolkovo Master's program, but he has nowhere to work because there is no laboratory. Yes, there is no laboratory – there is no building. They go to some strange lectures, simply because they have nothing to occupy themselves with, and develop workshops for schools. Complete nonsense. What's next is unclear, but the scholarship is decent – 50 thousand a month.
– How do you feel about scientific journalism and the popularization of science in general?
– "Schrodinger's Cat" is an absolutely gorgeous magazine. I saw the first issue and I really want the second one – everything is so good and cool there. The barrier between science and society definitely needs to be overcome. Someone said that science should be simple, fun and interesting, and scientists should be the same. I agree with this one hundred percent. Mikhail Gelfand, for example, is a well-known Russian scientist, very smart and easy to communicate. He has a cool blog in LiveJournal, besides, he is published in Nature, and for any scientist this is the goal of life: most Nobel laureates published their Nobel articles there. Alexander Markov, a biologist, popularizes the evolutionary theory in the same LJ. Some people still believe that all of us were created by aliens, so the "enlightenment" of this is very useful. It's just necessary.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru23.12.2014