Skolkovo on Wednesday unveiled its inaugural almanac, a major effort to bring smart discussion on the latest biotechnology advances to a broad audience in Russia.
Issue One discusses the field of so-called omics – a collection of biology study areas incorporating genomics, proteomics and others that delve into how organisms are built and function on a fundamental level.
The Skolkovo Almanac unveiled by the foundation's biomed cluster at Open Innovations on Wednesday. .
“In this almanac we’ve decided to collect the thoughts of a wide range of experts who are actively involved in the practical application of omics technology,” said Yury Nikolsky, the science director of Skolkovo’s biomedical technologies cluster who had a major role in assembling the almanac.
“Our authors represent the academic worlds of experimental biology, bioinformatics, economics, practical genomics, and also the leading clinics, service companies and the pharmaceutical industry,” Nikolsky added.
Nikolsky is a renowned expert in the sphere of biological data, systems biology and drug discovery, holding a PhD in molecular biology from Moscow State University and an MBA in finance and entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago.
He became the cluster’s director of sciences in June, ending 20 successful years in the United States, where he took GeneGo from a five-man startup in the systems biology sector to a market leader that was bought out by Thomson Reuters in 2010.
Omics is a crucial research area because it has the potential to identify and even address medical issues before they manifest. Little omics research is carried out in Russia, and a goal of the almanac is to stimulate more.
"We can't say that nothing happens in this area in Russia," said Kamil Isaev, vice president of EMC, a Skolkovo partner and collaborator on the 64-page almanac. "But it is an area of big potential growth," he added.
The almanac was unveiled at the Open Innovations Forum in Moscow. It is meant for a Russian audience but also includes two details research articles in English, in the ‘world experience’ section.
One, “Individualized Medicine from Prewomb to Tomb,” examines the consequences of a complete “omic” assessment of an individual that demonstrates each of us is unique “well beyond the matchless fingerprint or snowflake concept.”
“These singular, individual data and information set up a remarkable and unprecedented opportunity to improve medical treatment and develop preventive strategies to preserve health,” the summary states.
The other English-language article is titled “Personal Omics Profiling Reveals Dynamic Molecular and Medical Phenotypes” and shows how a personal omics profile can reveal various medical conditions, including type 2 diabetes.
“It also uncovered extensive, dynamic changes in diverse molecular components and biological pathways across healthy and diseased conditions,” says the summary on the website of the publisher, Cell.com.
The executive director of Skolkovo’s biomed cluster Kirill Kaem says the importance of the almanac has already been recognized.
“I think that we’ll continue this practice and we will be publishing an annual almanac popularizing the field of biotechnology,” he said.
Skolkovo is doing its bit to catalyze more omics research in Russia; Kaem said only around 10 percent of the biomed cluster's 220 resident companies are involved in bioinformatics. With the arrival of Nikolsky, the foundation hopes to raise this share significantly.