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Alexandra Dubrovina, winner of the 2021 Presidential Prize in Science and Innovation for Young Scientists
The prize was awarded for the development of innovative approaches to the induction of RNA interference and the directed regulation of plant genes.
Alexandra Dubrovina was born in the village of Chernoruchye, Lazovsky District, Primorye Territory, on February 13, 1986. She is a senior researcher at the Federal Scientific Centre of East Asia Terrestrial Biodiversity at the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and holds a PhD in Biology.
Her research interests include biotechnology. Scientometric indicators (publications/Hirsch index): WoS – 53/21, Scopus – 52/21, RSCI – 78/20.
Alexandra Dubrovina’s work focuses on the development of innovative approaches to the directed regulation of plant properties, which lead to the desired changes in their production properties, stress resistance and other attributes.
The ongoing development of new approaches to changing various plant attributes is an extremely important task, since obtaining highly productive and highly resistant plants using environmentally friendly and genetically safe approaches has so far remained an unsolved problem and leads to multimillion-dollar losses due to a decrease or loss in crop yields in this country.
In her studies, Alexandra Dubrovina showed the possibility of influencing the expression of plant genes and directed changes in the plants’ explored properties by external treatment of a plant surface with water solutions of double-stranded RNA.
Ms Dubrovina’s work shows that by treating plant surfaces with exogenous dsRNAs (double-stranded RNAs) and siRNAs (small interfering RNAs), the genes, the active expression of which prevents improvements in the quality of certain plant attributes, can be silenced.
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Arseny Kubryakov, winner of the 2021 Presidential Prize in Science and Innovation for Young Scientists
The prize was awarded for achievements in the study of the dynamics of ocean processes and their effect on the biological characteristics of marine ecosystems.
Arseny Kubryakov was born in Sevastopol on April 13, 1985. He is a lead researcher at the Marine Hydrophysical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and holds a PhD in Physics and Mathematics.
His research interests include oceanology. Scientometric indicators (publications/Hirsch index): WoS – 55/13, Scopus – 61/14, RSCI – 210/15.
Arseny Kubryakov focuses on studying the causes of variability in marine ecosystem characteristics and the mechanisms of influence of physical factors on the marine environment’s biological characteristics.
He has developed innovative remote methods for studying ocean dynamics (including ones adapted for measurements using UAVs); explored the mechanisms behind the formation and variability of dynamic processes in the ocean ranging from hundreds of metres to hundreds of kilometres (based on the Black, Norwegian and Kara seas, and East Arctic seas) based on the newly developed methods, as well as their influence on distributing the ocean water column by temperature and salinity; and studied the influence of atmospheric and hydrophysical processes (storm impact, winter cooling, shelf-to-shelf water exchange, drift currents, light conditions, and seawater desalination dynamics) on the development of phytoplankton blooms, the structure and dynamics of the phytoplankton communities, and ocean’s biological characteristics determined by optical methods.
This information made it possible to significantly expand the fundamental knowledge about the mechanisms behind the formation of currents, synoptical and small-scale vortices, the interaction of dynamic processes of different scales and their influence on the water structure and heat/mass exchange in the ocean, and made a significant contribution to advancing physical ocean science.
Arseny Kubryakov’s work boasts several implemented results, which include the Floating Object Tracking System (FOTS), which makes it possible to predict the consequences of oil spills and identify sources of pollution and the vessels that caused such accidents. The results have significantly contributed to advancing marine biology in Russia and enjoy demand in the shipping and fishing industries, as well as oil production and transportation.
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Leonid Skripnikov, winner of the 2021 Presidential Prize in Science and Innovation for Young Scientists
The prize was awarded for a series of papers promoting a theory of the electronic structure of the heavy element compounds in search of new physics and studies of the nucleus structure.
Leonid Skripnikov was born in Leningrad on May 26, 1987. He is a senior researcher at the B.P. Konstantinov St Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics at the Kurchatov Institute National Research Centre and holds a PhD in Physics and Mathematics.
His research interests include theoretical physics and elementary particle physics.
Scientometric indicators (publications/Hirsch index): WoS – 78/22, Scopus – 78/22, RSCI – 65/17.
Leonid Skripnikov’s work is dedicated to developing theoretical methods for the accurate prediction of properties of unmeasurable heavy element compounds, without knowing which it is impossible to explain the results of a complex scientific experiment involving molecules and crystals in search of new physics. One of the most significant results is the prediction of the effective electric field size in a thorium monoxide molecule.
The theoretical approach advanced by Leonid Skripnikov opened up breakthrough opportunities for the high-precision determination of values of the magnetic moments of the heavy element nuclei, which gave a boost to a new round of research focusing on the magnetic moments of heavy nuclei with the inclusion of the established values in the IAEA reference tables of the recommended magnetic moments. This approach made it possible to determine the magnetic moments of lead and bismuth nuclei at a groundbreaking level of accuracy.
Leonid Skripnikov came up with an innovative and unparalleled approach to calculating specific properties in crystals that relies on a two-step calculation of these properties, which makes it possible to significantly reduce the complexity of calculations without affecting their accuracy.
The approach has been recognised and is successfully used in an experiment on studying the interaction of the nucleus with particles considered for the role of dark matter.