- 27.07.2026 06:19
Our Graduate Will Receive One Million Roubles for Innovation
The results of the Student Startup competition of the University Technological Entrepreneurship Platform, a federal project initiated by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation in 2022, have been announced.
More than 2,200 students, residents, and postgraduate students will receive a grant of 1 million roubles to implement their business projects. Among the winners is Mikhail Verkholashin, a graduate of Tula State University. The Tula State University graduate's victory in this prestigious federal competition is further confirmation of the university's high level of training for young researchers and the successful development of scientific and technological projects with potential applications in medicine and the high-tech industry.
Mikhail completed his bachelor's degree in Biotechnology and his master's degree in Mechanical Engineering at Tula State University.
He won the competition with his project “NanoBioFrame: 4D Printing and Electrospinning”.
The project aims to use 4D printing and electrospinning to create medical implants with the highest possible survival rate in the human body. It is planned that during the manufacturing process, a layer of nanofibers will be deposited on each layer of the part. This will allow for simultaneous control of both the macrostructure of the product and its nanostructure. Thanks to the grant, Mikhail will be able to continue developing his invention and create a combined technology that will bring about the advent of next-generation implants.
This technology opens up broad prospects, primarily for biomedicine. It will enable the creation of medical implants with improved performance. Furthermore, the use of nanostructures makes it possible to impart new functional properties to products or significantly improve the already existing ones.
One example could be the creation of miniature friction-based generators that could power medical sensors. The project is not limited to developing a single product - its primary goal is to create a universal technological platform for the production of a new generation of functional materials and products.
The project's scientific consultants are Igor Leonidovich Kanev, PhD in Physics and Mathematics, and Olga Yuryevna Antonova, PhD in Biology. They are the founders of “Neyrograft”, a company specializing in the development of implants for nerve tissue restoration. This company will be one of the first customers to purchase equipment and products based on the new technology. The scientific team also includes Maxim Tailakov, a medical biophysicist and graduate student at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Mikhail Verkholashin has been collaborating with a team of scientists from the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences for over three years. During this time, several promising scientific and technical projects have been implemented. One significant result of this collaboration was the patent for the “Lung-on-a-Chip” device developed for biomedical research.
Today, Mikhail Verkholashin works as a leading engineer at a laboratory at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics. The young scientist's immediate plans include establishing his own organization, which will develop and manufacture biomedical equipment, specialized machine tools, production lines, and tooling, as well as further develop and implement the NanoBioFrame technology.
Dmitry Litvinov
Photographs provided by the subject of this article
