ITMO Students Among Finalists of Big Challenges Contest

50 students from nearly 20 Russian regions proceeded to the finals with projects in three categories: Genetics and Life Sciences; Artificial Intelligence and Information Technologies; and Cognitive Sciences. 12 of these students were named winners, including Anastasia Scherbakova, a second-year Master’s student at ITMO’s ChemBio Cluster, who also received an invitation for an internship at T1, a Russian IT company.

“My project centers on a technology that will automatically analyze medical data and diagnose diseases based on gut and skin microbiota, which is the concentration and composition of bacteria in the human body. Having introduced this technology, we will be able to produce personal recommendations on a patient’s diet, lifestyle, and food additives in order to adjust the microbiota and lower the risks of various diseases or improve the patient’s well-being. We are currently looking for open medical data to train our AI on, and soon we will test our system on actual patients before implementing it into practice,” says Anastasia.

Among the other finalists from ITMO is Yulia Agafonova, a first-year Master’s student at the Institute of Applied Computer Science, who competed in the same category with a project of a system that automatically compiles medical reports based on CT brain scans and also landed an internship with T1. 

Three other students of ITMO were named runners-up in the category Genetics and Life Sciences. Svetlana Bezlepkina, a second-year Master’s student at the ChemBio Cluster, presented a new approach to cytokine storm therapy for patients with pneumonia. During this condition, the immune system, provoked by different bacteria and viruses, is hyperactivated, causing a malfunction. As a result, the blood flow is infused with great amounts of substances that can cause fever, multiple organ failure, or even death. Svetlana has suggested a new therapeutic approach meant to reprogram the immune system, avoiding its hyperactivation.

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Dauddin Daudi, a second-year Master’s student at the ChemBio Cluster, presented SilkIns, his startup that develops skin moisturizers based on protein from spider web. Currently, the project is at the pre-MVP stage, with certification of the product and subsequent market entrance planned for the near future.

Another finalist was Konstantin Baltzat, a third-year Bachelor’s student at the Faculty of Infocommunication Technologies, who is working on a minimally invasive epilepsy treatment. The idea behind the project is that microelectrodes can be delivered to a blood vessel through an artery and used to monitor neural activity in order to prevent seizures via neuromodulation.

Semen Savrinovsky, a first-year Master’s student at the Faculty of Control Systems and Robotics, was also among the finalists from ITMO.

Big Challenges is a contest for research and technological projects developed by school and university students from Russia and the CIS countries. Finalists of the contest win the chance to intern at the offices of the Talent and Success Foundation and resident companies of Sirius innovative research and technological center; they may also receive presidential grants and take part in various scientific events run by Sirius. 

The second Congress of Young Scientists is a key event held on December 1-3 in Sochi as part of the national initiative Decade of Science and Technologies that brings together over 3,000 participants from 40 countries, including Russia, China, India, and Egypt. As a participant, ITMO is presenting its own technologies and inventions: a “kangaroo robot” and a robot artist, the next generation of wireless chargers, healthy “smart” cookies with microelements and biologically active substances, and more. Scientists affiliated with ITMO will also take part in the event’s business program.