Official website of the President of Russia

Vyacheslav Dyachuk, winner of the 2018 Presidential Prize in Science and Innovation for Young Scientists

The prize was awarded for discovering previously unknown mechanisms underlying the development of invertebrate and vertebrate nervous systems.

Vyacheslav Dyachuk was born on August 25, 1983, in the village of Kraskino, Primorsky Territory, Khasansky District. He is a senior researcher at the National Scientific Centre for Marine Biology, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and holds a PhD in Biological Sciences.

Research interests include developmental biology, embryology, neurobiology, cell biology, cytology and histology.

Research metrics: WoS 20/8 (publications/Hirsch index), Scopus 20/8, RSCI 21/5.

Dyachuk's research is focused on studying the molecular/genetic and cellular mechanisms underlying the formation of the nervous system in different groups of organisms.

His findings contribute to understanding how nervous systems occur and develop, how the speed of their development can be influenced, the specialisation of cells, their transformation into different types of cells, and how to make progress in treating patients with nervous system pathologies.

For the first time ever, a new nerve-dependent mechanism for cell type specialisation in early development has been proposed. A previously unknown mechanism for the specialised function of peripheral nervous system neurons has been discovered. Also, a previously unknown source and mechanism underlying specialised functioning of a certain type of stem cells has been discovered, which can be used in regenerating human tissue.

Mr Dyachuk’s work proves that auxiliary nervous system cells (glial cells) can morph into different types of cells of vertebrate embryos. In the future, this will make it possible to regulate the development processes of the nervous system and their treatment both for “breakdown” in early development and in elderly people suffering from neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer's and others.

Vyacheslav Dyachuk’s papers have been published in the world's leading journals including Nature and Science (Dyachuk, Furlan et al., 2014; Kaucka et al., 2017; Furlan, Dyachuk, Kastriti et al., 2017).

Yevgeny Gorlov and Viktor Zharkov – winners of the 2018 Presidential Prize in Science and Innovation for Young Scientists.

The prize was awarded for the development and use of lidar technology for the remote detection of explosives.

Yevgeny Gorlov was born on May 23, 1984 in Tomsk. He is a research associate at the Zuyev Institute of Atmospheric Optics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and holds a PhD in Physics and Mathematics.

Specialises in laser physics and optics.

Research metrics: WoS 16/2 (publications/Hirsch index), Scopus 21/3, RSCI 47/5.

Overall number of patents – 6.

Viktor Zharkov was born on June 15, 1985 in Tomsk. He is a research associate at the Zuyev Institute of Atmospheric Optics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and holds a PhD in Physics and Mathematics.

Specialises in laser physics and optics.

Research metrics: WoS 16/2 (publications/Hirsch index), Scopus 20/3, RSCI 45/4.

Overall number of patents – 5.

Yevgeny Gorlov and Viktor Zharkov developed a lidar based (laser localization) method of detecting super low concentrations of explosives in the air and on surfaces, which makes it possible to detect sources of danger in real time and at a safe distance.

Unique lidar complexes with the sensitivity of a “dog’s nose” were developed in the process of the hardware implementation of this method. They were designed for the prompt detection of micron-sized particles of explosives under conditions of intensive passenger traffic. Independent evaluation tests confirmed that the technical specifications of the developed complexes are considerably superior to their closest foreign counterparts.

The results of the research conducted by Gorlov and Zharkov make a substantial contribution to the development of methods for the remote laser probing of the environment, while the parameters of lidar detectors for use in explosive detection have set a global standard in this research area.

The achievements made by Gorlov and Zharkov are of major practical importance for strengthening Russia’s defence capability and countering terrorism.

Yekaterina Grizanova, winner of the 2018 Presidential Prize in Science and Innovation for Young Scientists

The prize was awarded for discovering previously unknown mechanisms of agriculture and forest insect pest resistance to bioinsecticides based on Bacillus thuringiensis

Yekaterina Grizanova was born in Novosibirsk on February 4, 1987. She is a lead researcher at Novosibirsk State Agrarian University and holds a PhD in Biological Sciences.

Her research interests include plant protection and agricultural and biological sciences.

Research metrics: WoS 10/6 (publications/Hirsch index), Scopus 14/8, RSCI – 20/8.

Ms Grizanova’s work is focused on discovering previously unknown mechanisms that underlie the resistance of insect pests to bacteria in order to create new integrated environmentally safe biological protection for agriculture and forestry.

Ms Grizanova conducted a series of studies that focused on the mechanisms that underlie insect resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis at the physiological, biochemical and molecular levels. Understanding the mechanisms of insect resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis will improve the environmental safety of biological protection substances, as well as the strategy for administering them through the use of various components that suppress the specific links to the insect antibacterial defence system.

For the first time ever, Yekaterina Grizanova’s work shows that during the development of insect resistance to insecticidal bacteria, epigenetic mechanisms work at the pre- and post-transcriptional level thus contributing to reprogramming the genes responsible for an insects’ resistance to bacteria. Understanding how insects protect themselves against bacteria and what key defence mechanisms they use will help weaken this defence and, thus, increase the effectiveness of bacteria-based biological preparations.

The findings will contribute to creating an environmentally friendly integrated new generation of biological substances for regulating the number of agricultural and forest insect pests, as well as reducing the impact of pesticides on agricultural production, which will make it possible to grow organic agricultural produce.

Ivan Oseledets, winner of the 2018 Presidential Prize in Science and Innovation for Young Scientists

The prize was awarded for creating groundbreaking computing technologies for solving multidimensional problems in physics, chemistry, biology and data analysis based on tensor expansion.

Ivan Oseledets was born on July 6, 1983, in Moscow. He is an Associate Professor at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, and holds a DSc in physics and mathematics.

Research specialties include tensor expansion, multidimensional problems, computational mathematics, linear algebra, mathematical modeling and data analysis.

Research metrics: WoS 79/15 (publications, Hirsch index), Scopus 89/19, RISC 100/18.

Mr Oseledets’ work focuses on mathematical description and creation of computational technologies for a broad class of applied problems in the language of tensor expansion and approximation.

Ivan Oseledets laid the foundation for a novel area of applied mathematics related to computational tensor methods. The proposed method is based on the effective processing of a significant amount of multidimensional data (arrays) describing the object under study. Multidimensional arrays (tensors as the mathematical representation of an object) arise in many applied uses of physics, chemistry, biology and data processing (these can be photos, videos, hyperspectral images, and many others).

Based on proposed approaches, an open-source TT-Toolbox software package was developed, which is widely used by research groups around the world. Using this package, a large number of algorithms for solving various applied problems in chemistry (calculating vibrational states and density functional equations), physics (calculating the magnetic structure of matter), biology (solving basic kinetic equations), mechanics (building mechanical systems models), data analysis (the compression of neural network layers), was created, including by other research groups. In all the above instances, multiple accelerations were obtained without loss of accuracy in solving multidimensional problems relative to traditional approaches.

Mr Oseledets’ work has received the recognition of the international research community.