The 50th, jubilee International Exhibition of Inventions and Innovations ("Eureka-Brussels-2001") has awarded a Diploma and a Gold Medal to the R&D work "A Bioanalytical System for Determining Biologically Active Compounds". This project is a product of joint involvement by the V.A. Engelgardt Institute of Molecular Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow), the Institute of Spectroscopy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Troitsk, Moscow) and the Biochemistry Institute of the University of Munster (FRG). Our observer Arkady Maltsev has interviewed heads of the research teams that have cooperated in this project on the Russian side: Dr. Yuri Yevdokimov, laboratory head at the Molecular Biology Institute, and Dr. Oleg Kompanets, deputy director of the Spectroscopy Institute. Here's a transcript of this interview. - How do you explain such high recognition accorded to your work? What is it all about? - Yu. Yevdokimov: Quite often in medical, biochemical or ecological studies it is essential to find out if there are biologically active or toxic compounds present in the human organism or in the environment. For instance, antibiotics, heavy metals, phosphoorganic and other genotoxicants, heparin, proteins and the like. Quite a few methods are in use now, such as liquid or gas chromatography, mass spectrometry, Spectroscopy and others, making it possible to determine the presence and concentration of corresponding agents with high accuracy. However, such analysis is a costly and laborious procedure. Equipment costs are high, and then you need high-skilled personnel who can do the job. Our system, while performing the same functions (and much more!), has added advantages, for it is based on a novel principle, a world's first. Its centerpiece is an optical sensor which, in its turn, comprises a DNA liquid crystal biosensor and a portable optical analyzer, the dichrometer. The biosensor (biologically sensitive element) is the heart of our system: it is an ... Читать далее