Two Biotech Master’s Courses Get Vladimir Potanin Foundation Grants

Every year, the Vladimir Potanin Foundation holds a grant contest for lecturers who design new and further develop already existing programs at the country’s universities. Representatives of 75 Russian universities participated in this contest. 

“The grant contest for lecturers of Master’s programs is a component of our Research fellowships program,” comments Natalia Shulgina, program director at the Foundation. “ITMO is a long-standing and successful participant of our program. Almost every year, some of its lecturers win grants and get support for new Master’s programs, courses, and relevant pedagogical designs. We support interesting projects in various fields of Master’s studies.”

This year, lecturers from ITMO’s Faculty of Biotechnologies got two grants. One was for the development of a new course on sport nutrition, another for a complete overhaul of an already existing course on energy conservation technologies in a circular economy. These applications passed the selection procedure and got high praise from the independent experts who collaborate with the foundation.

“The experts saw great prospects in both projects, and we decided to support their right for experimenting,” explains Natalia Shulgina. “We wish them success and hope that they’ll get results and their projects will be in demand among students.”

A new approach to sport nutrition

This year’s first winner is Liudmila Nadtochii, an associate professor at BioTech. She applied with an interdisciplinary educational product – the new course “Sports nutrition” which is based on the use of best practices in the field of nutrition, physical education and sports.

“The proposed course is unique from the standpoint of Master’s studies,” she explains. “Usually, this knowledge is given at professional development courses for fitness coaches. We suppose that it will be interesting not only for ITMO’s students but also a wider audience, as we’ll be streaming our lectures via social media. The course implies a combined approach. We’ll be studying theory during lessons: how sport nutrition is made, how it affects training, what has to be taken in account when choosing it and how it’s associated with a recipient’s age and gender. We’ve already brought up similar questions at the lessons that were part of other Master’s and Bachelor’s courses, and ITMO students questioned the current Russian regulations in this field. For one, in Russia, only men fall into the fifth category of physical activity (professional sportsmen in the course of intensive training). The students question which factors affect calorie intake, balance of proteins, fats and carbohydrates, and so on. They believe that such gender segregation is wrong, and they’ll attempt to prove their position.”

Apart from lectures, the course implies laboratory work that will take place at the international research center “Biotechnologies of the Third Millennium”. The students will develop sports rations, then assess their efficiency, their effect on various types of sportspeople, and so on. In order to do that, they plan to collaborate with the KronBars sports club, and test their inventions on members of different clubs and levels of training. As the course is implemented as part of the Faculty of Biotechnologies’ Substances for Healthy Longevity and Sports Nutrition specialization, we plan to cover a wide audience including the elderly. In the light of this, we are actively searching for a corporate partner from the fitness industry, and want to enter into an agreement with a premium-class fitness club.”

The grant support from the foundation will be aimed at the promotion of the course, its recording, scaling via social media, as well as the purchase of equipment essential for the development and testing of a new educational product.

Turning scrap into resources

The second grant receiver is associate professor Olga Sergienko. She presented an online course called “Energy- and resource-conserving processes in a circular economy”, that will be delivered in English and Russian. It has a long history at the university, but this year, a decision was made to transform the program. From now on, it will focus on producing energy and other resources from waste.

“This topic is becoming all the more relevant as waste accumulates, especially in cities, and the requirements for the disposal of domestic garbage at dumps stricten,” says the course’s author. “There exists a hierarchy: you have to prevent its existence in the first place, if that’s not possible, you need to minimize its amount, then maximize its recycling, but in the end, there will still be some waste that you can’t recycle with modern technology. Still, we can use it to produce energy.”

The course will explain how to do that. At the lectures, the students will learn about the production of RDF-fuel from unrecyclable plastic and wood scrap. Burning it can be a lot less hazardous for the environment than the use of coal or mazut, but only when done at specific temperature modes and with the use of special purification systems. Organic scraps can be recycled with the help of special biochemical processes such as aerobic and anaerobic fermentation. Finally, pyrolysis methods can be used to produce equivalents of liquid fuels and coal from waste without additional emissions in the course of recycling.

“We are planning to give students cases where they’ll be choosing the most efficient recycling technologies,” explains Olga Sergienko. “The cases will be associated with specific regions of Russia from the standpoint of waste generation.”

The grant money will be spent on recording an online course in two languages, its testing and promotion, as well as publication of research articles following the cases’ results.

Collaboration prospects

On July 1, representatives of the Vladimir Potanin Foundation came to ITMO’s Faculty of Biotechnologies to meet the winners in person and discuss the prospects of further collaborations.

“This is a part of our program of monitoring visits, during which we get to know grant winners and the course of their projects, learn whether they need support from the foundation, their difficulties and achievements,” says Natalia Shulgina. “We want to better understand the context and conditions in which the projects we support develop. Such visits give us an opportunity to get information first-hand, and see where our support is needed the most.”

For one, among the topics discussed at the meeting was the upcoming FoodBioTech-2021 conference that will take place at the Faculty of Biotechnologies in late August. 

“Three projects supported by the foundation will be presented at the conference,” says Natalia Shulgina. “It will be interesting to take part in the round table on education with a focus on Master’s studies. Such events offer a great opportunity to exchange opinions and best practices. We organize such platforms ourselves, and are glad to participate in those organized by various universities. Another future collaboration opportunity is the recently launched “Academic landing” contest. Its goal is to support the academic mobility of lecturers with the purpose of development of Master’s studies at Russian universities. You can learn more about the new contest here (in Russian)."