Professor of ASU Wins National Startup Tour

Dr. Tatyana Pochevalova, an Associate Professor of the Chair of Biotechnology, Zoology, & Aquaculture of Astrakhan State University, has won the 1st place in the track “Biological & Medical Technologies” of the national competition “Startup Tour – 2016”.

Dr. Pochevalova undertakes her researches in the field of cellular biotechnologies, cultures of mammal and human cells under in vitro conditions, biologically active substance to stimulate regeneration processes and proliferative activity of cell cultures, and cryotechnology.

The researcher has won the 1st place at the Startup Tour after developing her project “Development of Tissue-Specific Isolated Cells of Mammals & Humans under In Vitro Conditions”, whose goal is to create nutritional environments that are applied to grow mammal and human cells in vitro. The project also resolves the problem of their unsatisfactory growth in case of applying the widely spread standard environments. The output product has such comparative advantages as a high organ and tissue specificity, biological accessibility and assimilability for cell material, which will make it possible to attract pharmaceutical and biotechnological companies, centers of pre-clinical trials, research institutions, and agricultural companies as partners and consumers of this product. The project and its output product have already passed a number of trials and assessments at Russia’s top research institutions and scientific events; it has also won a federal grant to conduct further research.

The Startup Tour is Russia’s largest project to search for viable innovative projects and develop competencies of startup teams that present their high-tech developments. Its organizers are the Skolkovo Fund, the Fund for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises in Science and Technology (FASIE), and Fund for Infrastructure and Educational Programs of the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnology. In 2016, the Startup Tour took place in Krasnodar (a major city in Southern Russia) and united over 500 entrepreneurs and researchers from the Russian South. Any participating project first undergoes a distance assessment, and once it has been approved, it is publicly presented to well-known businesspeople, mentors, business angels, reps of investment funds and research institutions.

Winners of the 2016 Startup Tour have officially been invited to the Startup Village, which is Russia’s largest startup conference to be held in June 2016 in the Skolkovo Innovation Center. They shall not have to pass an additional expertise to take part in the Startup Village. Besides, the FASIE has invited the winners to the Final of the Start Federal Program in June 2016 as a part of the Startup Village. If they win the Final, they shall obtain 2, 000, 000 Russian rubles as a grant for their research activities.

Let us congratulate Dr. Pochevalova on her success!

Russian original information source: the University Web Resources Information Support Laboratory of ASU

Russian original photo source: Dr. Tatyana Pochevalova