NEWS

Synthetic biology is a scientific and technological discipline that solves the problem of designing and assembling biological systems with given properties and functions, including those that have no analogues in nature.

In the published report, we have shown the history of the emergence of synthetic biology, its role, breakthrough significance and prospects for development in the future, including in Russia. The sector of synthetic biology in Russia has just begun its formation. Today it is an area of science without major investments. But it is already of great importance to the country's economy, including the events of 2022 and the problems raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. Synthetic biology technologies are now crucial to the future development of pharmaceuticals, to ensuring the country's food security, to restoring broken technology chains in agriculture and to many other areas.

In developing the report, we took into account current trends in the development of science and technology, studied publication activity, considered government programmes for the development of this area in the world and the development plans of major companies, assessed activity in the venture capital market.

An important part of the work was the interaction with the research community. The experts of the report were scientists from St. Petersburg State University, ITMO University, DSTU, KFU, Moscow State University of Technology, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, National Medical Research Center for Radiology of the Ministry of Health of Russia.

We managed to identify frontier research areas that open up completely new prospects for the development of a whole range of industries related to synthetic biology: the food industry, pharmaceuticals and others.

The scientific editors were:
S.V. Shityakov, Ph.D., leading researcher in chemoinformatics, ITMO University; professor-researcher in theoretical (in silico) synthetic biology, University of Würzburg (Germany);
E.Y. Kirichenko, Ph.D. in Biology, Acting Head of Bioengineering Department, Don State Technical University.

The authors were:D.V. Sanatov, E.Y. Tibina, A.S. Purgin, S.V. Gubin,N.K. Petukhova.

The report was prepared with the support of the Government of St. Petersburg in cooperation with the St Petersburg Innovation and Youth Initiatives Support Fund.

The report was produced as part of the Foresight project "Fronts in the New Sciences". The report is available on the Foundation's website.