Altai State University held the first intensive course within the University 20.35 for young researchers

27 March 2021 Department of Information and Media Communications
On March 26, a strategic session of youth startups within the framework of the intensive course “From idea to project” of the University 20.35 took place at Altai State University.

The task of the University 20.35 is the formation of personnel for the National Technology Initiative, aimed at developing the economy of the future. The key tracks of this year at the University 20.35 were FoodNet, HealthNet and EduNet.

“This is our first experience of organizing such a crash course. Initially, we form interdisciplinary project teams for a comprehensive study of the tasks set, introduce the children to each other, and organize interactive activities for them. In the future, within the framework of the network resource, we will organize a variety of activities for the children,” explained Director of the Center for the Development of Technological Entrepreneurship, Technology Transfer and Intellectual Management Property of AltSU Olga Vysotskaya. “At the moment, more than 40 participants from Altai State University have registered for the course "From Idea to Project", but we plan to bring 7-10 teams in the areas of FoodNet, HealthNet, EduNet to the final defense in June, as well as within the framework of specific tasks set to participants by enterprises of the real sector of the economy. There are also interuniversity project teams”.

According to Olga, the purpose of the youth startups strategic sessions, which are organized on the platform of Altai State University, is to bring the competencies of young researchers and the projects they have worked out to the level at which they can be of interest to investors: public and private development institutions. The result of this work should be a fully worked out project, ready for presentation in various funds and private investors.

Today, the participants of the event are students of different directions and levels of training, who presented their ideas and projects in the format of a two-minute presentation. In particular, a youth laboratory called Papa Gene, which brought together future biotechnologists and genetic engineers, has prepared a project to develop a recombinant sweetener protein based on brazzein, a sweet-tasting protein isolated from the fruits of the West African plant Pentadiplandra brazzeana.

“We are developing a sugar substitute that has a number of advantages over existing ones. Firstly, it is a protein product, similar in its properties to sucrose, and, secondly, it is much sweeter than similar substitutes. In addition, it is thermostable, that is, it can be heated to certain temperatures, which is also an advantage,” explained Olesya Viktorina, a member of the project team, a master's student at the Institute of Biology and Biotechnology of Altai State University. “We plan to multiply this protein in laboratory conditions. Now we have already started practical work, inserted the brazzein gene into the bacterium and are now awaiting practical results."

The session also included the Mind Forcing Project business game in the format of a team brainstorming session. The result of the teams' work will be the formulation of specific products on which they will work over the next 2.5 months.

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