St Petersburg University awards the winners of Andrey Pavlenko contest

The contest was established in January 2022 and will be held annually among undergraduate students, master’s students, postgraduate students and clinical residency students. The idea is to attract the University students’ attention to humanistic ideas of improving physical, mental and social health.

Aleksandr Babich, Senior Vice-Rector for Youth Policy and Admissions, congratulated the winners. ‘In my opinion, this important contest promotes the idea of humanism, service and duty. Andrey Pavlenko is a role model for all of us: he held more than 2,000 successful operations and saved many lives, yet died of cancer himself. When he learned about his disease, he did not give up but started to help other patients, telling them how to live with a diagnosis of cancer, what to do and what mistakes to avoid. I hope that this contest will help the University preserve the memory of this outstanding person, who for a long time worked at St Petersburg University’s Pirogov Clinic of High Medical Technologies’, said Aleksandr Babich.

The "Life and Human Health: Modern Challenges" contest is held in four categories, in which scientific and social projects are evaluated. There were 22 applications submitted this year.

The first prize in the category "Recent or Ongoing Research in a Specific Field" went to the team of St Petersburg University chemistry students for the research project "Nanocomposite tags for optical tomography and hyperthermal therapy". This project was developed by Aleksei Smirnov, Vasilisa Svinko, Andrei Demenshin, and Valentina Keresten. The second prize in this category went to third-year student Aleksey Pantin for the project ‘Research of analytical abilities of gold InterDigitated Electrodes (IDE) and new highly sensitive electrochemical methods in development of a universal sensor platform for quantification of biomarkers of dangerous diseases’. The third prize was awarded to second-year master’s student Gennadii Revenko for his project "Health of transgender and non-binary people in the context of life experience and solitude".

Winning Andrey Pavlenko contest is an important achievement for us, considering what this scholarship is dedicated to. It’s an honour, responsibility and even more motivation for us to believe in the project we are involved in, and to bring it to actual application, when the results of our research will really help people.

Aleksei Smirnov, a St Petersburg University student

The first prize in the category "Applied Research in a Specific Field" went to first-year master’s students Ilia Kuznetsov and Viktoriia Ivanova for the project "Using geographical information systems in the work of the anti-tuberculosis service of St Petersburg". The second prize was awarded to second-year bachelor’s student Nikita Antonov for the project "Development of electrode material for enzymatic biosensors to detect glucose". The third prize went to maser’s student Kamguya Feukwi Herwe for the project "Analysis of mammograms and ultrasound images with tumours on the basis of computer vision technologies".

The best social project in the category "Technologies to Promote Preventive Information on Diseases / Health Threats" is PsyAzbuka Lecture Series project for St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region school students developed by bachelor’s students of psychology Mariia Filippova and Kamilia Nukaeva. The second prize went to third-year student Sofia Veredina, who is working on the development of information portal "STRESS.NET". The third prize was awarded to second-year student Galina Krasnoperova, who suggested developing "Zdravstvui!" ("Hello!") Internet project and a series of articles about communication between patients, their relatives and medical staff in a hospital setting in intensive care units.

The first prize in the category "Improvement of the Quality of Life and Human Health" went to third-year students Diana Laskaia and Aleksandra Sorokina for the "CREDO social project — students’ initiatives for improving students’ mental health". The second prize was awarded to first-year bachelor’s student Nadezhda Chernova for the project "Useful snacks". The third prize went to third-year student Sofia Veredina for the project "Food hanging systems in university cafes".