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FORMING EFFECTIVE CREATIVE MARKETS FOR INNOVATION

RESEARCHER

According to the latest version of the annual Global Innova-tion Index (GII), developed jointly by the Johnson Gradu-

ate School of Management at Cornell University, the Insead Business School and the World Intellectual Property Or-ganization, Russia now ranks as one of the world’s top-50 most innovative

VLADIMIR

KOROVKIN

RUSSIAN SCIENCE TAKES ON EBOLAAuthorities and scientists mobilize to keep the disease out of the country and help regions affected by the epidemic.

After a recent fl ight to Moscow from Malaysia via Abu Dhabi landed at Domodedovo Airport, the passengers were kept on the plane until two em-ployees from Rospotrebnadzor, the au-thority responsible for monitoring the epidemiological environment in Rus-sia, walked through with infrared thermometers to take the tempera-ture of each passenger. Their goal, and that of their colleagues who have been inspecting all international fl ights into Russia since September, is to detect Ebola. Russia does not have any di-rect flights from the West African countries considered to be the main centers of the epidemic: Liberia, Guin-ea and Sierra Leone. The authorities believe, however, that they can’t be too careful in preventing an outbreak.

Right now, the main problem facing the sanitary authorities is that the in-cubation period for Ebola can last up to three weeks. This means that it is possible for people infected with Ebola to cross international borders show-ing no symptoms whatsoever. An ad-ditional problem is that the symptoms of Ebola are similar to those of other diseases, such as malaria.

According to the Rospotrebnadzor chief, Anna Popova, there have been about 20 suspected cases of Ebola in Russia since the beginning of the year,

but none have been confi rmed. Since then, approximately 600 people trav-eling from West Africa have been put under a doctor’s supervision, but now almost all of them have been cleared.

Mikhail Shchelkanov, an Ebola ex-pert and head of the Laboratory of Virus Ecology at the Ivanovsky Virol-ogy Institute [whose opinion piece ap-pears on page 3], said that the Russian authorities were prepared to cope with the virus. “The population does not even suspect that [the country] has a bacteriological security system mak-ing it possible to detect and isolate more than 200 cases of exotic viruses penetrating the country each year,” said Shchelkanov.

Despite these assurances, people are afraid. According to a poll by one of Russia’s leading public opinion re-search centers, the Public Opinion Foundation, 47 percent of Russians think there is a risk of Ebola spread-ing into Russia, while 60 percent say they believe the government needs to strengthen measures to combat the virus. Of that group, 18 percent sug-

gest improving sanitary control for people traveling to Russia, 10 percent think a vaccine needs to be developed, while 9 percent think entry into Rus-sia should be restricted for people com-ing from Ebola epicenters.

According to official reports, all this and more is already being done. These reports state that Russia has allocated $19 million to the fi ght against Ebola and redoubled its efforts to create a vaccine. In addition, a Russian epidem-ic control team has been working on the ground in Guinea since August. The team is using Russian test systems that have been confi rmed as effective by the World Health Organization (WHO), and is helping local doctors diagnose and treat Ebola. The team has a mobile laboratory based on a Kamaz truck. According to Popova, Russia will also send extra epidemi-ologist brigades to West Africa.

The Virological Center of the Defense Ministry’s Microbiology Research In-stitute in Sergiev Posad and the Vec-tor State Scientifi c Center of Virology and Bacteriology are working on an

Ebola vaccine. Both institutions start-ed working on Ebola — including cre-ating biological weapons on its basis — during the Soviet era. Their work is still classifi ed, although scientists sometimes disclose information. In mid-October, Vector Deputy Director Alexander Agafonov said the center had managed “to construct several vac-cines against Ebola” and that it was preparing for preclinical trials.

The vaccines have already been test-ed on guinea pigs and monkeys, and one vaccine is deemed to be effective.Scientists have not revealed any de-tails about how the vaccines were cre-ated or when they can be used. A query about the vaccine that RBTH sent to Rospotrebnadzor, the parent organi-zation of Vector, in September was never answered.

Alexander Chepurnov, the former chief of Vector’s laboratory of danger-ous viral infections, told the news Web site Gazeta.ru that judging by Aga-fonov’s statement, it is “very difficult to conclude whether they have actu-ally managed to collect some vaccine

or whether it is wishful thinking.”Chepurnov started working with Ebola at the end of the 1980s. His laborato-ry also researched other deadly virus-es, including Lassa, Machupo and Mar-burg. In 1996, the laboratory discovered the “genetic basis of the virulence” of Ebola. “Usually the virus infects only humans and primates. We introduced the virus into guinea pigs, some ani-mals with certain manifestations of the disease were selected, the virus was isolated from their tissue, and we in-jected it into the next ones. This is how we derived a strain of the virus that could kill guinea pigs. If we compare its genome with the genome of the wild strain, we can fi nd the genetic factors of virulence,” Chepurnov explained.Within four years, Vector had identi-fi ed the mutation of the virus that is responsible for virulence.

However, the research was not con-ducted without tragedy. In 2004, Vec-tor lab technician Antonina Presnya-kova died after being pricked by the contaminated needle of an infected sy-ringe. Although the military research

institute in Sergiev Posad had devel-oped an antibody immunoglobulin to Ebola in 1995 that can help patients who already have the illness, it did not save Presnyakova. Chepurnov said that this was likely because she had already been infected with the disease twice before and may have developed im-munity to the immunoglobulin.

Despite the progress made with the-antibody immunoglobin, the institute has yet to develop a vaccine. Accord-ing to Chepurnov, “a working vaccine can only be made with a recombinant [a virus created by recombining piec-es of DNA ].” He said that “such vac-cines have been made abroad, but with the help of our scientists, who are for-mer employees of Vector. Victor Volch-kov, who now works at the University of Lyon, supplied several components to make a prototype of the vaccine on the basis of the vesicular stomatitis virus. Alexander Bukreev, who now works at the Galveston National Lab-oratory in the United States, did an entire prototype of the vaccine based on the parainfl uenza virus.”

According to WHO data, the most recent Ebola outbreak has killed ap-proximately 4,600 people.

countries. More signifi cantly, Russia con-tinues to advance in the rankings, mov-ing up from 62nd to 49th position in the rankings over the past year.

Unfortunately, the same week this summer when the 2014 Global Inno-vation Index was announced, so was a new package of international sanc-tions. This created uncertainty about

the future of innovation in the Rus-sian economy. That leaves one basic question for Russia’s innovation agen-da: To what extent will Russia’s inno-vation potential be affected by sanc-tions and the threat of global isolation? The GII attempts to produce a com-prehensive view.

There seems to be a signifi cant de-

gree of consensus within the country and even abroad about what could improve Russia’s innovation poten-tial. It has one of the highest percent-ages of enrollment in higher educa-tion in the world, with a signifi cant proportion of students choosing sci-ence and engineering. This, combined with a large research work force (Rus-sia ranks 17 in “knowledge intensive employment”), produces a sizeable number of domestic patents and util-ity model applications (#7 and #8, re-

spectively, when related to gross do-mestic product).

One factor hampering Russia’s in-novation is the quality and profi le of the nation’s institutions. While the scores for “political environment” can be considered to have a built-in bias, the low standing on the quality of reg-ulatory environment (98th position globally) seems to be based on what is found within the country.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

Russia has a long history of accomplishments in science and medicine. Today, Russian doc-tors are working in West Africa to combat the Ebola outbreak, while Russian researchers are making progress toward developing a vaccine against the disease.

Scientists are also using technology to fight brain cancer and work with stem cells to help those with both physical and psychological problems. Read about these programs in this issue of RBTH, which focuses on Russian medi-cine and science.

■GLEB FEDOROV

JOURNALIST

AFP/EASTNEWS

02

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STEM CELL USE HELPS BODY AND MIND

Russian researchers are exploring new uses for stem cells.

Brain Target software makes it easier

for doctors to read brain scans.

Scientists hope to cure physical and psychological traumas .

Software program combines results of several MRIs to create a complete picture of the brain.

The cost of genetic testing remains high as interest in the process grows.

■VICTORIA ZAVYALOVA

JOURNALIST

■SOPHIA TERESHKOVA

JOURNALIST

■VICTORIA ZAVYALOVA

JOURNALIST

During the Soviet War in Afghanistan, scientists attempted to use stem cells to help returning soldiers overcome psychological traumas brought on by war, such as post-traumatic stress dis-order. This put Russian researchers at the forefront of stem cell science. Rus-sia has only recently became a part of the multibillion-dollar stem cell re-search market, however, and has just seven large banks for preserving stem cells. In comparison. there are about 300 institutes in the United States and more than 80 in Europe.

Part of Russia’s difficulty in com-mercializing the technology is that stem cell science in the country was devel-oped fi rst for the Defense Ministry, so for many years this research was top secret. Nevertheless, the neurologist Andrei Bryukhovetsky, who has dedi-cated more than 25 years to such re-search, said that the science of stem cell use has grown steadily and that the work on using stem cells to com-bat and perhaps cure psychological trauma continues within the Defense Ministry today.

Alexander Vlasov, the deputy direc-tor of the Military Medical Depart-ment of the Defense Ministry an-nounced this summer that a new scientifi c division will be formed with-in the Military Medical Academy that will work on the creation of a stem cell bank for soldiers. Vlasov says that

A team of young Russian neurosur-geons and IT developers has created new software that will help doctors visualize and measure residual brain tumors as well as monitor them. The new program, called Brain Target, can also help to prevent brain hemorrhag-es in treating arteriovenous malfor-mations, a congenital vascular anom-aly that connects arteries and veins to each other directly. It occurs most often in the central nervous system.

“When I graduated from medical school, I got the idea of creating some-thing that would allow doctors to make objective decisions in risky situations that might threaten a patient’s life and

The market for genome research is growing rapidly in Russia. According to data provided by the Genotek lab-oratory, which performs genome test-ing, the number of people asking for DNA tests is steadily growing by 10 to 12 percent per month. As in other countries around the world, reasons for the interest range from simple cu-riosity to a desire to begin early treat-ment for inherited diseases.

The fi rst companies offering genet-ic testing in Russia appeared in the mid-2000s. My Gene opened at the In-novation Park of Moscow State Uni-versity in 2007 offering noninvasive prenatal diagnosis of fetal chromosom-al pathologies. My Gene representa-tives claim that the method they use is only available in six other labora-tories in the world — one in China and fi ve in the United States. In 2009, Flor-ida-based CyGene began offering di-rect-to-consumer genetic testing in Russia. Today, the international phar-macological giant Roche conducts ge-nome research in Russia, while Ge-notek, which opened in 2010, also offers complete genome testing. The inspiration for Genotek’s business model was the American fi rm 23andMe, which Google founder Sergey Brin’s former wife, Anna Wojcicki, created with Linda Avey in 2008. A new proj-ect by Atlas Biomed Group, also in-spired by 23andMe, launched in Rus-sia in late September.

the division will be divided into three units: biological-pharmaceutical, med-ical-prophylactic and engineering-technical. The fi rst will actively devel-op a stem cell bank for military personnel who participate in risky as-signments and in dangerous areas.

Banking for the futureBanks for preserving umbilical cords and cord blood, which are a main

source of stem cells, began to appear in Russia in the 2000s, but it has been difficult for them to stay in business. Despite the growing interest in regen-erative medicine, Russians are still not ready to pay the high price for storing cord blood, even though the costs are relatively low compared with such costs in other countries. Storing an umbili-cal cord at one of Moscow’s stem cell centers, for example, costs approxi-

mately 95,000 rubles (some $2,620). In the United States, the same service costs approximately $12,000. Russian patients have reason to be cautious, however. This summer, the Flora-med stem cell bank in Moscow disappeared. It had been in existence since 2003. The cords and cord blood stored there disappeared along with the clinic it-self.

Yet interest in preservation contin-ues to grow along with the success sto-ries. In 2013, the Human Stem Cells Institute (HSCI) opened the Genetico Center in Moscow, which treats pa-tients suffering from genetic diseases. Among the diseases it treats are con-genital immunodefi ciency, Krabbe dis-ease, Omenn syndrome, Diamond-Blackfan syndrome, Fanconi anemia and many others. The fi rst child to save an older sibling from Shwachman-Di-amond syndrome was born in Russia in 2014. The center will soon start working with families from Europe and Asia. HSCI has also developed a drug called Neovasculgen, which is being registered in the United States. It is designed to cure patients suffer-ing from critical limb ischemia, which has become a global pandemic in re-cent years, with more 200 million peo-ple currently afflicted by the disease.

RUSSIANS EXPLORE GENOME RESEARCH

NEUROSURGEONS AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERS TEAM UP TO FIGHT BRAIN CANCER

health,” said Gleb Sergeyev, a neuro-surgeon and the author of Brain Tar-get’s algorithm.

Targeting tumors Patients with brain tumors usually opt for surgery when possible, but surgery is rarely a complete course of treat-ment on its own. Even when the op-eration goes well, doctors must still monitor any changes in the brain and, in many cases, even if doctors believe they have removed the tumor com-pletely, patients must undergo a course of chemotherapy in order to eradicate any possible remnants. In other cases, a tumor cannot be fully removed be-

ferent MRI images and produces a com-bined version that is then examined by a neurosurgeon. In Brain Target, tumor remnants, blood and hemostat-ic agents have different colors and are easily identifi able.

The software can be used in treat-ing both cancerous brain tumors and diseases related to the vascular sys-tem. During an arteriovenous malfor-mation embolization, for example, the program can assess to what degree it is excluded from blood circulation in order to prevent a hemorrhage.

Identifying the danger zones The Brain Target software has been

tested at the neurosurgery division of the E.N. Meshalkin Research Insti-tute of Blood Circulation Pathology in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. “We checked patients immediately after surgery and identified areas where tumors could re-emerge in the future,” said Brain Target’s Sergeyev. “After six months or a year, we checked them once again. Practice has shown that Brain Target clearly identifi ed dangerous zones.”

Positive feedback on the program has already been received from an-other Novosibirsk clinic and from the medical center at the Far Eastern Fed-eral University in Vladivostok. The results are promising, but to ensure that this software is introduced at every clinic, a multipurpose study is needed.

According to Russian law, the pro-gram must be used to analyze the MRI scans of approximately 1,000 patients accompanied by a random clinical study. Only then will the project team be able to register the software and begin distributing it. Brain Target aims to distribute fi rst in Russia and then worldwide.

Reducing the cost of treatment Only about 50,000 surgeries on brain tumors are performed in Russia every year. In China 350,000 surgeries are

performed annually, while in the Unit-ed States, the number is about 100,000 and 25,000 in Canada.

There is a reason for the limited use of the procedure in Russia. In this coun-try, neurosurgeons operate on patients according to a federal quota. Some op-erations are paid for privately, although few patients can afford them. In Mos-cow, for example, such a surgery can cost from 900,000 to 4.5 million rubles (approximately $25,000 to $125,000).

For most Russians, this fee is far from affordable. A signifi cantly higher num-ber of cancer patients are in need of help and might benefi t from this new software.

The Brain Target team is currently looking for funding to fi nalize the soft-ware component and to transform the prototype into a fi nal version of the product.

They are seeking 5 million rubles (approximately $139,000). The program has already been used to study rough-ly 50 patients. In all of those cases, Brain Target successfully identifi ed the remnants of cancerous tumors. The program has 100 percent sensitivity and hemostatic agent specifi city and shows a very high potential for con-sistent results.

cause surgery might affect the func-tionality of significant parts of the brain.

Traditionally in Russia, the degree to which a tumor has been removed is assessed “approximately,” based on the strength of the surgeon’s experi-ence and on a postsurgery MRI scan. Such an assessment is subjective, how-ever. It is sometimes very difficult to detect the remnants of a tumor, since blood, hemostatic agents and tumor fragments all have more or less the same color on an MRI scan.

Brain Target software has the po-tential to help solve this problem. The program simultaneously processes dif-

The forbidden scienceRussians with a curiosity about ge-netics weren’t always able to pursue this interest. Starting in the 1930s, geneticists were persecuted in the So-viet Union. Official propaganda claimed that citizens of socialist coun-tries could not have genetic diseases and that discussions about genes were the foundation for racism and fas-cism. The American scholar Hermann Muller, a Nobel Prize laureate, wrote that being a geneticist in the Soviet Union was like being Galileo at the Inquisition. In 1940, Trofi m Lysenko became the director of the Institute

of Genetics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, heading the campaign to persecute researchers. Lysenko’s the-ory of genetic traits argued that ac-quired characteristics could be inher-ited. During this time, many talented geneticists who embraced Mendelian theories of hereditary traits were ar-rested and killed. Arguably the most famous of these was the plant genet-icist Nikolai Vavilov, who was accused of being an English spy and eventu-ally died of malnutrition in prison. In 1948, Josef Rappoport, who had dis-covered chemical mutagenesis, was told to renounce the chromosomal the-

ory. He refused and was dismissed from the institution where he worked.

Taking a specific approachMany Russian genetic testing firms focus on locating the gene for one spe-cifi c genetic condition, or a range of conditions that could affect one part of the body. St. Petersburg company Sequoia Genetics has collected more than 1,500 DNA samples from patients with cystic fi brosis. Oftalmik, based in Moscow, specializes in the genetic test-ing of people suffering from eye dis-eases. Genotek also began offering tests that indicate a tendency toward spe-cifi c conditions, such as diabetes. Tests for specifi c genes are much cheaper than an entire genome sequencing, which makes the service attractive to a wider range of people. Genotek also negotiated for discounts from its equip-ment suppliers so it could offer more affordable tests.

“The market for genome research is very dynamic and a large number of people in Russia are now working to obtain genomic information,” said Mar-ianna Ivanova, founder of Oftalmik.

Russians cannot order direct-to-con-sumer genetic testing from fi rms based abroad because of a 2007 ban on ex-porting human medical specimens, so Russian start-ups have a captive au-dience for to their products.

A risky business model While several Russian genome testing companies cite 23andMe as a model, they may be more able than the Amer-ican fi rm to keep up with the latest trends. In 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the sale of the company’s kits for personal ge-netic testing. In its explanation of the decision, the FDA said it was concerned about possible errors in the test that could cause the company’s clients to make radical decisions about their health and health care. As a result,

23andMe stopped offering clients tests that checked for predispositions to dis-eases and today focuses instead on tests that will help people trace their an-cestors via genealogical research.

Its founder, Wojcicki, said that the decision will inhibit the company’s de-velopment. “You can already see what the Genomics Institute in Beijing is doing,” Wojcicki said in an interview with the medical portal Medscape. “Saudi Arabia announced plans to genotype 100,000 people…The rest of the world is moving forward aggres-sively with this, but we are somewhat stuck.”

Hi-tech equipment, high pricesWhile Russians who do genetic test-ing primarily do so for health reasons, some are willing to spend the money to fi gure out who their ancestors might have been. One Russian politician re-cently took a haplogroup genealogy DNA test that linked him to a variety of famous people.

“We found out that he had common ancestors with Napoleon, Einstein and Hitler,” said Valery Ilinsky, Director of Genotek. “He was proud of it and told other politicians that Napoleon was his relative.”

According to Oftalmik’s Ivanova, all the necessary equipment for proper genome decoding is available in Rus-sia. The supercomputer Lomonosov, for example, one of the 100 largest such computers in the world, performs ge-netic sequencing and is in service at the biotechnology cluster of Moscow State University. Despite the availabil-ity of technology and equipment, Rus-sian genetic testing clients still pay more on average than people in other countries. Whereas in the U.S. a client can pay $100-$200 for a test, in Rus-sia, such tests cost $600-$800.

Several companies in Russia now offer genetic testing for specific disorders, as well as entire genome sequencing.

Russians cannot order direct-to-consumer genetic testing from abroad due to a 2007 ban on the export of human medical specimens.

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Russia is also weak in market experi-ence (#111 globally with a special weakness in “credit”) and innovation links (#126), a metric that primarily refers to “university-industry research collaboration” and “state of cluster de-velopment.”

In addition, there are some discrep-ancies between the outside view of Russia’s innovations and perceptions within Russia. While some concerns (such as collaboration between uni-versities and business) were recognized within Russia and targeted through policy steps, other institutional weak-nesses — such as low availability of credit — are not part of the general discussion of the subject domestically.

What role should the state play in developing innovation?The role of the government in devel-oping innovation is another question that the Global Innovation Index, or GII, addresses. To what extent should the state be engaged in dealing with innovation within Russia? The authors of the GII methodology answer this question easily: “Probably the state is doing too much.” Generally, the char-acter of the GII metrics implies the classic vision of “private enterprise, driven by market forces.” Any weak-nesses in Russia’s performance when

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

October Monthly

Memo: Response

to Sanctions

November

Monthly Memo:

The G20 Summit

As the West prepared to announce a new round of sanctions against Russia aimed squarely at the finan-cial sector, Russian lawmak-ers were not sitting idly by.In this issue of the RD Monthly memo, find out what steps Russia is prepar-ing to undertake in order to protect its economy and fi-nancial sector. How realis-tic are these initiatives? Dis-cover what they mean for both ordinary Russian citi-zens and foreign players in the market.

In anticipation of the G20 summit in Brisbane, Austra-lia, this RD monthly memo examines the potential of the G20 to transform into a more influential global gov-ernance body. With Russia still on board, what might be the prospects for the bloc to address current challenges and meet the interests of its member states? Some won-der if we need such an insti-tution today and what fac-tors might prevent the bloc from realizing its potential.

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it comes to innovation might come not from the lack of “state” efforts, but rather, from the defi ciencies in private enterprise and the institutions designed to support it.

The Global Innovation Index is am-bivalent about whether extensive state control (which usually comes hand-in-hand with protectionism) works for innovation. Some countries that are commonly viewed as examples of co-ordinated state guidance over private initiative do traditionally score high on innovation — Singapore (#7), Re-public of Korea (#16), China (#29), Ma-laysia (#33) or the United Arab Emir-ates (#36).

On the other hand, some other clas-sic cases of protectionism and state regulation — such as India (#76) and Argentina (#70) — are not so impres-sive. Yet, there is a pressing need for Russia to have the answer — as it is essential for the evaluation of the ef-fect of the sanctions and formulating the appropriate policy to overcome their consequences.

Intuiting the next steps for Russia’s innovation sectorAn increasingly popular view within Russia holds that any sanctions that limit the presence of major multina-tional fi rms and thereby decrease the level of competition on the Russian market may turn out to be benefi cial

for Russia’s innovation capabilities. These sanctions would stimulate the development of local “substitute” tech-nologies, leading to a shift in capital fl ows as investors place their money in local companies.

The frequent accompaniment to this idea is that it will be the state that will constitute the market for innova-tion and technology. It is only the state sector that is wide and deep enough to prevent any unnecessary turbulence, the thinking goes. The idea of the wastefulness of market competition seems to be strongly internalized here. Why spend resources on the parallel development of essentially the same thing?

But does the example of the suc-cessful Asian economies, all with a strong government role, tell a differ-ent story about the role of competi-tion? All of them — Japan in the 1960s, South Korea in the 1980s, China in the 1990s and Vietnam in the 2000s — were deliberately seeking participa-tion in competitive global markets. They were exporting cars, consumer electronics or textiles and selecting the target countries on the basis of mar-ket size, not the ease of entrance.

In contrast, India, Argentina and Brazil adhered to the idea of focusing on the protected domestic markets in order to nurture their local industries. The policy did work in a few specifi c

cases, but not for the economy in gen-eral.

In the current context of the big de-cisions that need to be taken on the issues of economic policy, Russia’s lead-ers should be careful with the temp-tation to view the thinning competi-tion as a blessing, and the state as the effective substitute to the market. Such an approach will defi nitely not improve Russia’s standing in the ratings on in-novation. What is more important, re-al-world innovation capability may also suffer.

The time to enter the “open market” from under the protectionist umbrel-la always comes, sooner or later, and this move can turn out to be disap-pointing for a nurtured company that did not have a chance to check the at-tractiveness of its innovations against the global competition.

In the challenging new internation-al situation for Russian business, the state should avoid playing the role of a mega-buyer or mega-contractor. In-stead, it should focus on creating ef-fective competitive markets for inno-vation. Domestically, it requires stimulating the general economic ef-fectiveness of any business operations. Innovation fl ourishes when it becomes part of everyday business, not an iso-lated stream of activity. It remains to be seen if external economic pressure can be the tool to achieve this.

EBOLA EPIDEMIC: FEARS AND REALITY

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR RUSSIAN BIOTECH?

Today’s Ebola epidemic has reached an unprecedented scale for four main reasons. The fi rst is the natural concentration of

the Zaire ebolavirus (the formal desig-nation of Ebola) in West Africa, at the crossroads of Guinea, Liberia and Si-erra Leone. The second is a lack of re-liable information about the circula-tion of Ebola in those places, both in those countries and in the broader glob-al community until the beginning of 2014. The third is the complex socio-economic environment in West African countries and the fourth is the pletho-ra of local customs that facilitate the spread of communicable viruses.

To determine the likelihood that these factors could come into play in Europe and Russia, one must take a closer look at the conditions that caused Ebola to take hold in West Af-rica and how these conditions com-pare to those in Russia and Europe.

There are three main types of Ebola outbreaks. The fi rst is the forest type, when whole forest villages are infect-ed with the virus and die. In these sit-uations, fruit bats, which are natural transmitters of the Zaire ebolavirus, infect monkeys or other wild animals, and these newly infected animals are

Together with information tech-nology and nanotechnology, bio-technology is one of the most important and fastest-growing

segments of the world economy. It is estimated that the world biotech mar-ket will reach $2 trillion by 2025. By developing biotech today, countries are laying the foundation for their long-term economic growth. But whereas Russian scientists have made famous and widely recognized accomplish-ments in IT and nanotech, biotech has only recently become a focus of atten-tion for the Russian authorities.

In April 2012, the government ap-proved a comprehensive biotech de-velopment strategy for the period until 2020 called BIO2020, which consoli-dates the resources of a plethora of government structures to tackle the challenge of speeding up Russian bio-tech development. The government is striving to make the Russian bioecon-omy worth 1 percent of GDP in 2020 and at least 3 percent by 2030.

Even if Ebola were introduced in Russia, it would only arise in sporadic cases, which would be discovered quickly.

Major corporations have yet to become notable players in the biotech segment of the market, so the government dominates it.

Russian scientists have made significant contributions to global developments in biotechnologies.

hunted by locals, who bring the bush meat back to the village to eat. The fruit bats themselves are also a popu-lar dish in the region. In the end, Ebola infects the entire settlement. In con-ditions of overcrowding and a lack of proper treatment, mortality can reach 90 percent.

The second type of Ebola epidemic is rural. The behavior of the fruit bat changed when tropical fruit planta-tions began to spread right up to the edges of forests. The bats began to feast on fruit not in the forest, but on plan-tations. The plantations attracted a higher concentration of people and, as a result, the risk of infection skyrock-eted. It is likely that patient zero — the person from whom the current ep-idemic originated — came from near a plantation. As far as we know, in this outbreak, Ebola patient zero was a two-year-old boy who died on Dec. 6, 2013.

After this, the infection began to spread and took on the characteristics of the city type of Ebola epidemic. This type of outbreak occurs when the virus is transferred through direct contact with the biological fl uids of sick peo-ple. Unlike other diseases, such as the fl u, Ebola is not transmitted by air-borne droplets, which generally makes it harder to spread — but this is where the particular conditions of life in West Africa come into play.

Much of the population of West Af-rica is very poor and this fact is re-fl ected in living conditions in the rap-idly-growing cities. They are covered

in trash heaps, including in the main street of Conakry, the capital of Guin-ea. Sewage fl ows along nearly all large streets, where trash is also discarded and people bathe. The health care sys-tem in the region is in its infancy, and there is simply no sanitary and epide-miological control. Even before the Ebola epidemic, child mortality was 118 per 1,000, and adult mortality is also extremely high.

A threat to Europe?It would be impossible for the disease to spread in the United States, Europe and Russia on the scale that it did in West Africa. For one thing, these coun-tries have solid systems for monitor-ing the evolution of epidemics, so even if the conditions for nurturing Ebola existed in Russia and Europe, they would be under constant control. Ad-ditionally, the socioeconomic situation in Russia and other developed coun-tries is completely different from that of West Africa. Finally, Russia histori-cally has an excellent system for en-suring biological security. For this rea-son, theoretically a similar situation could not arise in Russia. Even if Ebola were introduced in the country, it would only arise in sporadic cases, which would be discovered quickly and lo-calized in the shortest possible time.

But it should be clearly understood that the precautionary measures cur-rently being implemented at airports — such as taking temperatures and surveying passengers — are necessary yet insufficient to completely rule out the emergence of the virus in Russia and other countries. It is possible that an infected person could get through even the most thorough checks at air-ports. These checks will do nothing to stop the classic case of an imported virus, in which an infected person in the incubation period, without any clinical symptoms, crosses the border and gets sick in a new country.

But Russia has on average 100 to 200 cases of imported viral infections every year, and none of them have had epidemic consequences. The same will be the case with Ebola.

production volumes and speed in com-parison with the global leaders.

Nevertheless, Russian scientists have made signifi cant contributions to glob-al developments in biotech. Russia has developed monoclonal antibodies, vac-cines against several dangerous infec-tions, long-acting drugs and geneti-cally engineered strains that produce amino acids and vitamins. Russian sci-entists’ work on an Ebola vaccine has successfully undergone preclinical tri-als and is ready for use. Additionally, over the past two decades, Russia has formed several recognized schools to develop HIV vaccines. The DNA-4 vac-cine is undergoing the second phase of clinical testing.

The key problems standing in the

STANISLAV

TKACHENKO

EXPERT

Stanislav Tkachenko is a professor in the School of International Relations at St. Petersburg State University.

Mikhail Shchelkanov is the head of the laboratory of Virus Ecology at the Iva-novsky Institute of Virology. This sum-mer, he helped fi ght Ebola in Guinea.

Another contributing factor to the spread of Ebola is local funeral cus-toms. In the region, when a person is being buried, all of his or her relatives wash and hug the body. Naturally, ev-eryone involved in the ceremony could be exposed to infection, because the virus is transmitted via direct contact with bodily fl uids. The pull of these traditions is very strong, and illitera-cy and a general lack of education doesn’t help doctors who want to spread information about how to stay safe from the disease. It is easier for people to believe in established tradi-tions — for example, that the deceased should be kissed before burial — than to accept that they could be infected with a deadly virus by doing so.

MIKHAIL

SHCHELKANOV

DOCTOR

In November 2012, the Russian gov-ernment created a working group on biotech development chaired by Dep-uty Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkov-ich. However, Russia cannot develop the bioeconomy without the active par-ticipation of large industrial corpora-tions, and very little has been done in Russia in this fi eld. The leading pub-lic and private corporations have yet to become notable players in the bio-tech segment of the market; therefore, the government dominates it.

As part of the state program Phar-ma 2020, in 2013 the Russian Indus-try and Trade Ministry established a scientifi c and technical council to iden-tify biotech development priorities in Russia and to allocate grants to sup-port breakthrough research. Today Rus-sia manufactures biotech products in small batches. The country lacks a sys-tem for scaling up scientifi c biotech developments for the purpose of in-dustrial output, as well as other ele-ments of the bioeconomy needed to translate scientific discoveries into commercial products.

Russia is planning to construct some 10 factories to produce biotech bioge-nerics by 2020, with total investment estimated at about 10 billion rubles. In its current state, however, Russian biotech is falling behind in terms of

way of Russian biotech development are the lag in the country’s research and tech production base, low demand for biotech developments, high barri-ers for biotech products to enter the world market, insufficient investment, and the risk that Russia will turn into a source of raw materials for world biotech leaders.

Yet these problems existed before the United States and its allies im-posed economic sanctions against Rus-sia in the spring of 2014 in connection with the Ukraine crisis.

The long-term consequences of the sanctions will undoubtedly be nega-tive. Cross-border ties between scien-tists and research centers are being severed, and cooperation in joint re-search is becoming less effective. As a result, Russia will be forced to pursue a “national model” for the biotech economy. In light of how quickly bio-tech is developing and how intense competition is for entering the mar-ket for innovative products, this strat-egy serves as collateral against inevi-table losses in the future.

But isolation isn’t the answer. Rus-sia needs to remain an open economy and a part of the global liberalized trade system. Scientifi c contact needs to be developed with international partners, and intellectual property rights need to be protected.

The government needs to support both basic and applied research. Big business needs to become a key play-er in bringing biotech achievements to market.

If these challenges are met, Russia will be able to occupy a distinguished position in the modern global econo-my, in which biotechnology will be a key element.

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REAL ALE REVOLUTION BREWING IN RUSSIA

Zhigulevskoye: The Austrian-Mexican Roots of Russia’s Most-Popular Beer

Local craft beer enthusiasts are taking matters into their own hands, creating fl avorful pale lagers in small batches.

Craft beer — is it a creative, fl avorful option to the bland beer produced by faceless corporations or the overpriced preserve of bearded hipsters?

Whatever reaction those two words prompt in one’s mind, there’s one link almost certainly not thought of — Rus-sia. Yet exotic hops and citrusy pale ales have now spread from the exper-imental brewers of Colorado and the fashionable crowd in Brooklyn all the way to Russia’s sprawling cities and snowy steppes.

Frosty relations between the Rus-sian and U.S. governments are not stop-ping inspiration from the United States reaching such Russian brewers as Ni-kita Filippov, one of a trio of friends behind AF Brew, a two-year-old start-up producing fi ercely hoppy India pale ales in St. Petersburg.

“Originally, it was just an extension of our beer-drinking and beer-travel-ing hobbies,” Filippov said, a reaction to the locally made “tasteless, indus-trial pale lagers” packing the shelves of Russian supermarkets. Think Mill-er Lite with Cyrillic script on the label.

“Our first-ever slogan was ‘We’re brewing beer that nobody brews, and if nobody likes it, we are the ones who will enjoy it,’” said Filippov. “We seri-ously thought that we would drink the fi rst 500-liter batch of Ingria IPA in case the whole idea failed.”

Obviously, that didn’t happen. AF Brew — the initials stand for Anti-Factory in opposition to the industri-al beer giants — is now fi rmly estab-lished among the vanguard of Russian craft brewers.

St. Petersburg, historically Russia’s window on Europe, saw the fi rst fl our-ishes of Russian craft brewing around a decade ago, but now exciting, well-traveled young brewers are setting up shop around the country and collabo-rating creatively with foreign stars of craft brewing.

St. Petersburg was Russia’s czarist-era capital, but the industrial Urals city of Yekaterinburg became its anti-thesis when the revolution came — this was where the royal family was shot dead. Now, solidly working-class Yekat-erinburg is a craft beer center, too. Local brewer Jaws, based near a So-viet-era nuclear power plant, has spent the past fi ve years producing fl avorful American-infl uenced beers, with label designs drawn from Hawaiian surf cul-ture. Even the brewery’s name is bor-rowed from a powerful wave off Maui.

Other up-and-coming Russian brew-ers include LaBEERint, from the cen-tral city of Kaluga; and Martin, based in a village in southern Russia, whose

For nearly a century, the most popu-lar beer in Russia has been Zhigulevs-koye, which was fi rst brewed in Sa-mara, a city on the Volga. Despite its mass availability and So-viet image, this beverage is directly re-lated to the Mexican brands Dos Equis and Negra Modelo, which are popular the world over. Samara’s Zhigulevs-koye brewery was opened in 1880 by Alfred Josef Marie Ritter von Vacano, an Austrian nobleman of Hungarian-German origin. Von Vacano proved to be an outstanding brewer and bril-liant businessman.

After a few years, the small, half-dilapidated brewery that had fallen into his hands became the top factory in Russia. The business boasted its own power station and electric refrigera-tors, which were still rare at the time; railroad and river transport; and strict

innovative lagers were a big hit when the company built a bar near the ho-tels for foreign journalists at the Sochi Olympics.

Moscow remains something of a black hole. It’s not yet quite clear why craft beer has yet to conquer the cap-ital, but Moscow’s smattering of craft beer shops and its fashionable bars, such as the brightly colored downtown hipster den Entuziast, tend to stock bottles of St. Petersburg and Yekater-inburg brew, if they offer any inde-pendent Russian beer at all. Yet even there, things are changing. The bar at the popular concert venue 16 Tonn, modeled on an English pub with wood panelling and stained glass, has a win-dow offering drinkers a view of the fermentation tanks of its in-house brewery.

One thing brings all of Russia’s craft brewers together, though — a revolu-tionary spirit.

“We wanted our craft beer to be-come a part of a lifestyle for creative and nonconformist young people in Russia — like it was with foods, music, movies, clothes and gadgets,” AF B r e w ’ s F i l i p p o v s a i d .“We took a lot from the American craft brewing tradition, and we still lean toward American brewing style and innovations — beer styles, ingredients, label designs. At the same time, we re-alize that we operate in Russia and the majority of our customers are Rus-sians; many things that took decades to develop everywhere else may only take years here.”

The fruits of the revolution don’t come cheap. After journeying almost 900 miles (1448 kilometers) by road from Yekaterinburg to Moscow, a bot-tle of Jaws’ signature American Pale Ale costs 160 rubles ($4) in a shop, ris-ing to some $6.30 in a bar.

That price difference has opened a gap for Russia’s brewing estab-lishment, which like the old guard in any revolution, is trying to ex-ploit the trend.

St. Petersburg’s vast Baltika company makes nearly half the beer sold in Russia, most of it the industrial lagers that craft brew-ers oppose. Multinational brewing giant Carlsberg completed a buyout of Baltika’s shares in 2012, about the same time that AF Brew’s insurgents were getting started on the other side

of town. Now, however, even Baltika is discovering a bit of craft spirit.

In March, it launched two beers branded “Brewer’s Collection,” one a tasty, citrus-fl avored “California light,” the other a somewhat insipid “Viennese”-branded lager. Retailing at around $1.50 in supermarkets, they may not be craft, but at least they show a major brewer providing its custom-

ers with beer varieties they may not be able to afford otherwise. On anec-dotal evidence gathered from Moscow fridges, they’re pretty popular.

Unlike Baltika’s typical mass-mar-ket lagers, the beers in the new collec-tion sport labels that explain hops, malt and fermentation. While many Rus-sian beer-drinkers may not be able to afford experimental craft brews every

day, they are increasingly aware of how good beer is made. And advertisers are taking notice and fi nding ways to tar-get them.

If beer enthusiasts are now part of the Russian mainstream, where does that leave the revolutionaries? Nikita Filippov has the answer.

“We must keep rolling 24/7 and keep coming out with new beers, crazy fl a-vors, unusual ingredients, collabora-tions and events every day,” he said. “And that’s what we do.”

hygiene standards. As befi t an Austri-an, beneath all his pragmatism, the immigrant businessman was sentimen-tal and romantic: He named his brain-child after the Zhiguli hills — a pic-turesque Volga site connected with Stenka Razin, a sort of Russian Robin Hood. The plant brewed several types of beer, but the local Vienna lager en-joyed particular popularity; this is a variety of beer that is now nearly for-gotten in Europe. Vienna lager resem-bles the well-known Pilsner lager, but

is more stable and has a richer color, ranging from amber to red, and a strong hop bitterness. Toward the end of the century, von Vacano’s beer was not only being served in all the best restaurants in the wealthy Volga region, but it was also being exported.

The beer’s superb taste came from the high quality of the raw materials, strict production standards and the fa-mous Volga water, which is celebrated for its taste. Fortunately, the Soviet au-thorities could not destroy the life’s

work of the Austrian, who had received Russian citizenship at the turn of the century, even if they destroyed the man himself. The Bolsheviks seized the fac-tory from von Vacano and expelled him from the Soviet Union, but they kept the factory’s culture.

In the early 1930s, Anastas Mikoy-an, Stalin’s minister of food produc-tion, visited the brewery, approved of the beer’s taste and the work of the “Viennese man,” but ordered that the beer’s “bourgeois” name be changed. The decision was a quick one: rename the beer after the factory. Thus the ac-claimed “Zhigulevskoye” was born. Soon the Zhigulevskoye recipe became the standard for the entire country. Beer with this name was brewed in the So-viet Union in more than 700 locations. Several hundred breweries through-out the former Soviet Union continue to make it today, but there is only one true Zhigulevskoye — the one that is produced at the Zhigulevskoye brew-ery in Samara.

Genuine Zhigulevskoye cannot be transported in bottles — it is a “live,” unpasteurized beer. So where does Mexico enter the story? When von Va-cano fl ed from Russia to Austria, a few Austrian brewers were escaping Eu-rope’s famine and going to Mexico, where they started to locally produce Vienna lager — the subsequently re-nowned Dos Equis and Negra Moledo.

■JAMES ELLINGWORTH

JOURNALIST

■DMITRY SUKHODOLSKY

JOURNALIST

Despite their differences, one thing brings all of Russia’s craft brewers together — a revolutionary spirit.

True Zhigulevskoye is available at only a few select restaurants in Moscow.

SLAVA PETRAKINA

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