The apogee of obscurantism

Venus Galeeva

St. Petersburg scientist Mikhail Dubina received the UNESCO Gold Medal for his contribution to the development of nanoscience. In an interview with Fontanka, the scientist told what exactly he was developing and why nanotechnology was doomed to ridicule in Russia.

While nanotechnology is perceived in social networks as a term for creating a comic effect in demotivators, UNESCO annually awards gold medals to scientists for their contribution to the development of nanoscience. In 2016, half of the eight laureates were Russians. Among them is Mikhail Dubina from St. Petersburg, head of the laboratory of nanobiotechnology, first vice-rector of St. Petersburg Academic University, Doctor of Medical Sciences, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Fontanka asked the scientist to explain in clear words what is wrong with Russian nanotechnology today if medals are given abroad for them, but nothing about them in Russia it is not really known whether the academicians opposed the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences in vain and what they are still doing at Skolkovo.

– Mikhail Vladimirovich, in 2013 in the Expert magazine you published an essay in response to the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences under the pessimistic heading "Twilight of Science – the decline of the country". Still, it seems to have worked out, is the RAS functioning, are the academics working?

 – Science in Russia has been reformed before, but it has never been the case that all funds for the implementation of science were taken away from the scientific community.

 Figuratively speaking, the academics were driving a certain car. Maybe they didn't steer very well. And the car is worn out. But at least it was necessary to ask the scientific community how they imagine this reform.

– And this discussion would drag on for 10 years.

 – Or it was necessary to set clear tasks. And it turned out that the academicians who were driving were not even transferred to the passenger seat so that they showed the officials where to go. And not even in the back. They were "promoted" – put on the roof. So that they could show the officials the way from there, from the roof. It is probably not for nothing that the President of our country, Vladimir Putin, has been extending the moratorium on the management of property and personnel of the Russian Academy of Sciences for the third year. So something was done wrong. In January 2016, at a meeting of the Presidential Council for Science and Education, this moratorium was extended for another year.

– Can you give a concrete example of the negative consequences of the reform?

 – Unfortunately, negative consequences in science do not manifest themselves immediately.

– Two years have already passed.

 – And what? Formally, everything is in order: the former institutes of the three academies receive money, people are not fired for no apparent reason. Outwardly, everything is fine, and there seems to be no reason to cry. Officials are organizing something, but they have "found" a lot of some academic property. How can I find state property? It was state-owned, but in operational management. But they change the directors of research institutes to people who don't even have scientific degrees. And the negative consequences will affect later. And, probably, if there is not the same critical and urgent demand for breakthrough scientific results as during the Great Patriotic War, the consequences may never affect. Formally, everything is there, the academy exists. But he's dying.

– Critical demand can come at any minute – now enemies are all around again, and again Russia has only two allies: army and navy.

 – Yes, it is. But the acute moment of realizing this has not yet come. For example, the real awareness of the importance of fundamental scientific achievements in our country in the last century really came not even before, but after the Great Patriotic War. When Hiroshima and Nagasaki were blown up. When it became clear that all the achievements of the Great Victory, for which tens of millions of lives of an entire generation were given, could simply be erased. But after all, no one invented the atomic bomb out of interest in order to then offer it to the state. For the scientific breakthrough that took place after 1945, qualified personnel were needed, scientific directions that could become the basis for the rapid implementation of the state request. And now we are going to the fact that we will not have that either. The question will arise that we urgently need something. And the director of the institute, who knows nothing, will answer it. But he created a well-managed, but not a creative team.

– It is believed that nanotechnology is not only a benefit, but also one of the main threats of the future.

 – Absolutely right. Synthetic substances up to 100 nanometers in size not only exhibit new properties, but also pass through all biological barriers.

– Is it more serious than biological weapons?

 – I think that especially dangerous viruses are much more serious. But with the help of nanotechnology, it is possible to create a directional weapon that in the future will be able to hit only the enemy, "bypassing" its own. Charles de Gaulle said: "We are always ready for the previous war." At the start of the next war, we don't know what will win. In the XVIII century and in the First World War, it was cavalry, and the equipment (artillery, tanks, planes), with which the Second World War began, won. And the Third World War – the "cold war" – began with atomic deterrence. But the economy won in the end. What will become a weapon in the future and will win the economy is still unknown.

– There is an opinion that in our country politics is actively smashing the economy, which, apparently, has defeated science. Or is all not lost yet?

 – Problems for society, as a consequence of the harm done to science, manifest themselves after many years. The most striking example in Soviet times is genetics. From an ideological point of view, genetics was then recognized as a bourgeois science and not needed by the Soviet Union. We have not developed this area. As a result, genetics is now the backbone of the biopharmaceutical industry. And we have not formed scientific directions, we had no groundwork. We destroyed it. Now the same destruction is being carried out throughout science as a whole.

– But someone is floundering like a frog in a jug of milk. And even receives UNESCO medals for it. By the way, for what exactly?

 – This medal was awarded to me not for a specific achievement, but for a set of works.

– And what is this award, what is its reputation in the scientific community?

 – To be honest, I have no idea. For me, the evaluation of my colleagues is more important than the medals that are hung. I perceive this as an achievement of the entire team working under my leadership. We are engaged in many areas, from the creation of new drugs and methods for the treatment of oncological diseases, such as breast cancer and blood cancer, to the early diagnosis of socially dangerous diseases using the latest physical developments.

– Do you have any technologies that are already being put into practice?

 – In order to put something into practice, there must be, in fact, practice for this. There must be an industry. Large-scale production.

– But a whole pharmaceutical cluster is developing in St. Petersburg.

 – Any pharmaceutical companies invest resources, as a rule, counting on their own developments and research. Domestic pharmaceutical manufacturers specialize mainly in generics – that is, they use knowledge about those drugs that have already been studied and have shown commercial benefits on the market, for the development of which billions of dollars have already been spent. Creating a generic and launching it on the market is the main "innovative" approach today. Show me at least one medicine that was developed in Russia after the 80s?

– And why do Facebook and the Internet in general know so little about Russian nanotechnology?

– The easiest way is to compare Russian and foreign experience on the practical application of scientific developments. But in the West there is a whole industry that demands scientific results, for example, to bypass a competitor. And they demand: give us something new. And there is no one to demand from us. Even if there suddenly turned out to be a lot of their own konurent developments – but who will take them here in Russia? Is there a large-scale industry of its own that will risk billions of investments in order to bypass Western competitors in the market?

– Using the example of some of your developments, can we simulate an ideal situation? For example, do you have a method for diagnosing cancer. In order to put it through all the tests and bring it to the market, it takes so many billions, but after so many years it will be possible to use it and save half of the women in St. Petersburg from breast cancer.

 – In fact, it's not like that. You don't quite understand everything correctly. We need to start with the opposite. For any customer, be it the pharmaceutical industry, or the medical industry, or the military department, a final, effective, competitive product is needed. Substance, medicine, technology, etc. So, first of all, they estimate the volume of investments in order to get one final competitive product. If a biotech company plans to get a diagnostic tool, it must first give grants to the scientific community or establish a research department that will develop different approaches to the problem over time.

– And he can do it for 20 years.

– Yes, and maybe it will happen in a year – no one knows. And this department will work out a lot of everything, synthesizes a lot of chemicals. At this stage, you can determine the costs. Next, you need to choose which of all this will work not only on cells, but also on animals. Animal research is a terribly expensive business. And then the first of the four phases of human clinical trials begins. The least dangerous samples go to the second phase of testing and so on. As a result, the pharmaceutical company receives an effective drug worth up to a billion dollars, which it introduces to the market, hoping to cover costs and make a profit. But potentially effective technologies that are "eliminated" at the first stages are also income. "Raw" patents are bought by other companies to create their "own product". This is done by most pharmaceutical clusters in India, in China. And in Russia.

– Who do you work for if it is impossible to realize the results of labor in Russia?

– For the future.

– The future will come, and technology will become obsolete.

 – And what to do if our time does not need all this. For example, Mendel's laws were discovered a hundred years earlier.

– Well, some kind of turn in the brains of the elite is happening, probably? Everyone is starting to look at their own, native, relax in Russia, take care of import substitution. Do you feel that some kind of draft has blown in your direction?

– We all hear it, but how should we feel it? A kind rich uncle will suddenly come and ask: do you have any developments that we are ready to implement in business and spend billions of dollars?

– What if he comes? What will you tell him?

 – We will say: take it. Why do we constantly publish in the foreign and domestic press?

– And which development is the most "ready" today?

– For example, the diagnosis of incurable breast cancer. The biggest problem with breast cancer is that in 30% of cases, a relapse of the disease occurs even after the removal of the tumor in the early stages and full-fledged high-tech treatment, including chemotherapy, immunomodulators and radiation therapy. And the problem is that no one can predict in advance whether all these treatments will help you or not. For women, this is fundamentally important – if you get into a group, and you will receive relevant therapy in time, or you need to be in a group that obviously needs to be treated with chemotherapy. Such diagnostics are not interesting for pharmaceutical companies. But we took samples of patients for whom any therapy does not help at all, and compared them with samples of those whom therapy helped. If you start from the one to whom you could later sell the development, this is adaptability, not science. To go into the zone of the unknown, not knowing what you will get and whether you can get at all, is science. And trying to collect grants and report on them on time or publish a bunch of high–impact articles together with foreign researchers is not science.

– That is, you began to search in a group that was obviously doomed.

– Yes, we started looking there. There were no differences to be found by standard methods, even Western ones. But with the technology of genome–wide sequencing for 6 million gene sites, which Stanford recently developed - and 600 thousand sites are usually watched – there were differences. They can become the basis for the diagnosis of cases when a suspicious gene is detected in a patient. For example, one because of which Angelina Jolie, they say, removed her mammary glands, and it may be that in vain. Yes, a violation of the BRCA-1 gene in 80% of cases leads to the development of breast cancer. But maybe it belongs to the remaining 20%?

– And now could you give an answer to this question?

– We couldn't yet. But if the research is supported, we probably can. Although who would need it? Pharmaceutical companies do not need it, there will be no profit here. This is obviously necessary for those women who will be treated for a long time with ineffective toxic drugs in advance, and not to look for new methods of healing. But our whole world is focused on the economy, not on the person.

– How do you manage to negotiate with this state, which is also, it turns out, focused on the economy, and not on the person?

– We do not negotiate, but live in it. Here, at the Academic University, the cult of science and education is flourishing, not in words, but in deeds. And I am proud to work in such a team.

– Is the term "nanotechnology" used for other purposes in everyday life?

– Well, the area was named so according to the size category of particles – from 1 to 100 nanometers. What difference does it make what to call it? Nanotechnology is determined not only by the size of particles, but also by their artificial origin, and most importantly – the controllability of processes. Here they say: nanotechnological oil, or cream. Well, where is nanotechnology there? What do we manage there?

– And why have nanotechnology become a household name in Russia and cause mostly sarcasm?

 – I think that this term was obviously doomed to ridicule. It's like saying that we are transforming the world – without a more or less serious foundation of knowledge. Such New Vasyuki. The reason is loud statements, especially by people who really do not understand what they are dealing with.

– It turns out that Chubais is to blame, he also said in 2009 that nanotechnology should become the basis of the economy by 2015?

 – And who is Chubais by education? And why did he make such statements? RUSNANO was not originally focused on science. This is commercialization. But in order to commercialize any nanotechnology development, it must first be invented. After all, the goal was to immediately create companies and sell. And what to sell?

– That is, RUSNANO was ahead of its time.

– Well, let's assume so. And Skolkovo operates more widely.

– What, even more ahead?

– This is the foundation for the commercialization of scientific developments. And Skolkovo also does not invest money in scientific research.

– But you are a member of the advisory scientific council of the Skolkovo Foundation.

– We consult when asked.

– And when was the last time you were asked about something at Skolkovo?

– We meet every quarter. One or two days. We hear reports on what the clusters have done in certain areas. The employees of the foundation make their own decisions, what is important, what is not important. It's a business community. There, the selection of commercially significant projects takes place by "invisible" experts – not by us. And the fact that we express our opinion does not interfere with the process – the caravan is moving. But I believe that the progress of science will eventually help to defeat obscurantism. But, apparently, only when this obscurantism reaches its next apogee.

– So it's not the apogee yet?

– No, not at all. That's when they say that satellites don't really fly and there is no space at all – then it's time to pick up old manuscripts and burn another Giordano Bruno. Here, at the Academic University, we have an oasis. No other institution in the country has such freedom of creativity, which was created by a wonderful person, a scientist and a citizen – the only Nobel laureate living in Russia, Academician Zhores Ivanovich Alferov. He doesn't need to assert himself. He understands that the future is being grown now. And he supports scientific projects that are not required to immediately make a profit here and now. Projects in which obviously insurmountable, breakthrough tasks are set. I think it can be compared with the nuclear physicists of the 30s. How did they look at them during the period of the rise of the national economy, when the country needed new plows and tractors? What did they do from the point of view of the authorities? They did not contribute to the national economy. Well, everyone was not killed by the time they were really needed.

– And then they were put in sharashkas at the camps, and there they turned out to be very useful.

 – Well, probably sharashka is the best way to create and develop something new. And if the country needs it, then I will be happy to go to such a "sharashka", where talented scientists would be gathered and real tasks of scientific breakthrough would be set, provided with the full support of society and the state.

– And what will your family say to this?

– There were families in sharashki too – in settlements nearby.

– Do you seriously think that scientists should be gathered and locked up somewhere on Solovki?

– No, of course not. I am for the authorities to show a real interest in what science is doing. And not a formal one: how much property can be transferred somewhere, how to effectively dispose of it or profitably privatize it, remove old people and put incompetent young directors. Show interest in the end result, not in the process itself. And now, unfortunately, everything is Kafka–like - a process for the sake of a process.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru 12.02.2015