16 June 2003 16:43
Project Hope
 On June 3rd, the 20 winners of the Second Russian Innovation Competition were announced at the New Manezh in Moscow. The best of the Russian innovation economy was recognized as the hope of the Russian economy.
For the second year in a row, Russian hi-tech has told the public at large, "I am recognized therefore I am." But is society getting the message? Judging from the number of ministers, parliament members, entrepreneurs, and academics present at the ceremony, it is. On the sidelines, representatives of the current elite cautiously but confidently whispered that the much discussed doubling of the GDP declared by the president would be impossible without an effective national innovation system. Still, no one dared to suggest to Putin that growth rates will never double unless Russia dives into the world market for hi-tech products.
Where disciplines meet
These elite whisperings aside, it is obvious that competition winners fit into the world tech market well: biotechnology and medicine, nanotechnology and new materials, IT and telecom, personal and information security technology. In these hot spots, or at the intersection of several of them, is right where the victors fall.
The grand prize, an Audi A4, was given to Bioanalytical Technologies, for the company’s development of biological analysis process to identify biologically active substances in liquids. This collaboration between Moscow physicists and biologists could become a hit on the rapidly growing biosensor market, which is currently estimated at approximately $8 billion.
By means of this portable dichrometer and biosensor based on nucleic acids, high-quality and high-speed analysis of blood or other fluids can be conducted to detect an entire spectrum of active substances. A single example will suffice to demonstrate the revolutionary nature of this new technology. It takes two days to determine the level of an antibiotic in the blood using traditional methods, but with this device only ten minutes.
This biotechnology breakthrough came about as a result of uniting two lines of natural science: genetics and the physics of liquid crystals. Research into spiral-shaped cholesteric liquid crystals made up of "pieces" of DNA demonstrated that they have an amazing property, an anomalous optical reactivity. Scientists at the Institute of Microbiology used this transformation of DNA into a liquid crystal to create the conditions to "dissolve" cholesteric crystals and quickly and accurately measure the concentration of crucial biological compounds such as genotoxins that alter the structure of DNA (these include in addition to antibiotics chemotherapy medicines and heavy metals). Their colleagues from the Troisk Institute of Spectroscopy have created a unique device, a diachrometer which measures the optical reactivity of these "solutions."
The Scientific Center of Fiber Optic Technology at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ General Physics Institute won the Intel Award for best IT and telecom project. The choice of the representatives of American Intel and Intel Capital, working in Russian since May, coincided completely with the opinion of the competition’s panel of experts. The project, "Fiber optic sensors based on high-temperature Bragg gratings," does not completely fall into the IT category, but the Intel reps praised its elegant solution that, like the first prize, arose at the interface of various disciplines: optical physics, materials engineering, and information technology.
Current fiber optic measurement devices cannot function at temperatures over 300°C, while many technological processes take place under even hotter conditions. By combining two mutually complimentary kinds of know-how—the technological production of high-temperature Bragg gratings based on hi-tech nitrogen fiber optic light guides, and a new approach to calculating and analyzing the spectrum of Bragg grating reflection—the Moscow scientists developed an unprecedented temperature sensor that can operate at temperatures as high as 900°C and capable of enduring brief periods of 1000-1200°C. The potential market is estimated at $1.5-2 billion a year.
The security boom
The Expert Magazine Prize for Technocratic Creativity—$5000—went to the PIK Company of St. Petersburg for its long-range radio frequency identification system. The universal long-distance surface acoustic wave marker (using this effect in crystals) is the new word in the global radio-frequency id industry that has existed for decades. One would think that everything in this area had already been thought up, from the sheets of foil stuck in books to prevent shoplifting to complex devices installed in cars to locate them in case of theft.
Every up-to-date cell phone has a filter on its transponders made of niobates. Transponders also have an electro-optic reception range. The Petersburg inventors figured out how to use transponders as a binary code source. By changing the configuration of the electrodes, the device’s code can be changed. When the marker’s reception antenna gets a signal, it transforms it into an electric impulse strong enough to create an acoustic signal read from the code embedded in the electrodes and sent by the transmitter antenna to the search device. Bar codes function without semiconductors or batteries that give counterintelligence devices away. Hidden radio transmitters are also nothing new. And it’s not that hard to observe fast moving objects. But a device that unites all these qualities was not possible before the SAW marker. The market potential for this innovation is great, even without taking the secret service into account. PIK’s markers are not only capable of tracking a drug shipment or steering a ballistic missile with incredibly accuracy; they also have important civilian applications, such as linking serial numbers to an expensive items. Specialists believe that it would be best to promote SAW markers on the US market and that it would be a crime not to make the most of the security technology boom.
In the context of this boom, the decision of German company ISO-RISSAN Technology to invest half a million euros in the small Moscow company Biometric Technologies seems like a particularly smart one. The average growth rate on the biometric security systems market, systems used for information protection, payments, building access, and personal identification, runs around 20% a year, and in 2002 the market exceeded $1 billion. Among other methods, the most widely used are fingerprinting systems. According to the International Biometric Group, more than a third of all companies developing personal identification equipment use fingerprints. Sales double each year, which means that Biometric Technologies has a great chance of winning a place for itself on this rapidly growing market. The company has developed fingerprint scanners, readers, and accompanying software employing radically new algorithms not used by any other company in the world. The resulting biometric security systems have a precision rate three times higher than those of other manufacturers.
From microscopes to diesel
The world market for microscopic research instruments is currently estimated at $5.8 billion. In order to achieve breakthroughs in microelectronics, biotechnology, materials technology, and engineering, microscopes must have a resolution of 10 or even 1 nanometer and allow for rapid analysis while avoiding contact with and damage to the sample, as frequently occurs with regular instruments.
The no-contact, non-lysing Dedal-LSPP laser profilograph-profilometer created by the Dedal Company has just these qualities. The instrument allows researchers to introduce new two-dimensional parameters to describe the surface characteristics that were not examined previously as they were so time consuming to obtain. With this instrument, researchers will be able to conduct medical and biological investigations of low-contrast objects such as blood plasma and nerve fiber cells. To further perfect this profilograph, the Russian Fund for Technological Development has already granted 5 million rubles and is considering further financial support for the project.
Yet another competition winner made an innovation in what would seem like the fairly traditional realm of petroleum refining. The British Council chose this project to be represented at a venture capital expo this summer in Oxford.
The technology of this single-stage process for obtaining engine fuel is made possible by a unique catalyst developed by the Novosibirsk Boreskov Institute of Catalysis. The institute developed a new, revolutionary technology that allows high-octane fuel to be refined in only one stage. An even more value product based on the same technology is so-called "arctic" diesel fuel. It freezes at -60°C, which puts it in the world category A. Importantly, as most oil in Russia is sulfurous, the refined fuel is not limited by sulfur content. According to estimated energy usage, this new technology for refining oil into high-quality engine fuel is four times more efficient than existing technologies.
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