OREANDA-NEWS  On 28 November was announced, that RUSNANO delegation headed by Director General Anatoly Chubais visited the Moscow State University. The purpose of the visit was to see the laboratories specializing in the field of nanotechnologies. While at the Institute for New Carbon Materials and Technologies, Anatoly Chubais reviewed the modern carbon materials technology for aerospace applications. RUSNANO representatives also visited biotechnological laboratories at the Centre for Bioengineering, where an instrument able to determine the concentration of blood sugar in less than a minute was shown. Later on, the MSU researchers showed the original developments based on scanning probe microscopes at the Centre for Future Technologies. Finally, the delegation visited the MSU Computing Centre, where they witnessed the supercomputer with peak performance above 60 TFLOPS.

A working meeting of RUSNANO representatives with MSU scientists was held after the visit. Anatoly Chubais shared his impressions about what he saw.

“I feel like I visited not just a university, but a kind of a gold mine – one with an abundance of treasure and a great wealth of material still waiting to be found,” he said.

For the head of RUSNANO, MSU is a huge asset for the development of nanotechnologies in Russia. Among possible areas for collaboration between the two institutions, Anatoly Chubais mentioned investing in projects aimed at the commercialization of nanotechnologies, participation of MSU specialists in expert evaluation of projects applied to RUSNANO for financing, the participation of universities’ specialized laboratories in the certification of nanoproducts, and education of project team members. Anatoly Chubais proposed to organize a special course of lectures for Rusnano management and staff.

“I shall certainly be attending some lectures myself,” he said.

One of the outcomes of the visit was a preliminary agreement on the creation of a centre for nanotechnologies, where scientific research and experimental design works will be conducted, and pilot products incubated. At present specialists from RUSNANO and MSU are preparing an agreement project. The Agreement is planned to be signed next month.