LAS Vice President Ojārs Spārītis: Our inventions remain "on paper"

"It might be that the virus that has set upon us, which may have escaped from mother nature's grasp or from a bat's armpit, works better than any miracle weapon... But I keep watching the consequences and analyzing the public reaction," says Ojārs Spārītis, Vice President of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. A conversation with him today - about the relationship between society and the covidvirus, personalized medicine, and what keeps people sane.

Will the new situation in the world and Latvia change the course of the Latvian Academy of Sciences in any way?

I think so. LAS is only one stage of the entire Latvian science, education, and economic administration and communication system.

If life, society and the economy change, so does the Academy of Sciences. In addition, it should change rapidly: because the academy houses the strongest part of the nation's intelligence, and it is able to predict processes much more successfully and faster. Scientists are able and they do it, but in those moments when they bring their forecasts and recommendations to the executive or the Saeima commission, the door is slammed shut in front of their noses. At best, they are allowed to speak, but that is the end of it all.

I think this has been the case all the previous years.

This is the privilege of politicians: to hear only what they are saying.

Is there any way to change this situation?

Quickly - definitely not. When I visited various scientific forums, where the heads of Academies of Science from different countries met, we discussed current scientific issues in the world. And going to these meetings every year, I realized that many things do not change at a rapid pace, only evolutionary development takes place. I saw how technology, education, society develops... And now Covid is breaking this calm, ascending curve, bringing something like a cardiogram into development, whose downward slope can represent a heart attack or even a stroke. The strongest will survive in science as well - the ones who will be closer to money. And the media every day try to get us used to the coffins and the dead, to the lines of people to covid testing places, basically to a wartime situation.

Dzintars Dreibergs, the director of the film Blizzard of Souls, said that we should not compare this time with war, because we have not been in a war situation, so we cannot know how terrible it is.

Well, we can emotionally call it whatever name we want. But Dzintars Dreibergs has not experienced war either. He has only staged it but he has come very close to the experiences of the war. The war of the 21st century cannot be what World War I was more than 100 years ago when cannons splattered people. Today's conflicts - alright, we can choose not to call them war - are in competition. Earlier military conflicts were the end result of the intensification of competition between kings, rulers, and ministers, now we can only guess which empires are in a crisis of relations that require them to launch a new weapon: currency fluctuations, bacteriological, psychological, or information diversions. It might be that the virus that has set upon us, which may have escaped from mother nature's grasp or from a bat's armpit, works better than any miracle weapon... But I keep watching the consequences and analyzing the public reaction. I have spoken to people who survived the war and whose homes were overthrown by one side and the other. One side bombs the other, then the other does the same, your dog is shot in front of your gate, your cow is torn to pieces, some intruders grab the meat from the pantry, others take the bread, you stand there in the middle with your bare life, and you are useful only as long as you have something to give to the invaders. You have something to give as a bribe. But today it is unlikely that we will be able to "bribe" covid with bacon, eggs, or moonshine...

Maybe we can "bribe" it with the vaccine?

Listen to what scientist Ivars Kalviņš says: he is very cautious about the vaccine that pharmaceutical magnates offer as a panacea, but no one knows what will happen to a person six months or a year after vaccination. It is a hastily constructed vaccine architecture... Latvian scientists are also looking for their key to the complex combination of virus components in order to find its weakness or kill it - with the help of another virus or gene combination. But who can say that this new vaccine antivirus will not create anything more aggressive or lively than the existing SARS-CoV-2?

What times we live in...

We live in an era of regular, seasonal flu epidemics. And this year's flu vaccine is a vaccine against the last year's flu. And which pharmacologist can guarantee that the vaccine available in 2021, which is designed to fight the 2020 virus, will also be able to fight viral mutations in 2022 and beyond?

So what's the point of getting vaccinated?

When the virus mutates, just as the part of the mother's and father's cells remains in human cells, part of the previous set of the virus remains. If the vaccine is aimed at neutralizing part of the previous virus set, this part may be suppressed in the next virus modification. Although we do not know how many will remain active.

We have fantastically smart scientists. How does the state use them? In my opinion, there is a lack of purpose.

We have an excellent resource of scientists. In medicine, biology, mechanics, engineering, chemistry, pharmacology, even genetic research and regenerative medicine. While in Japan, I met Shinya Yamanaka, a Nobel Prize winner in regenerative medicine, and gave him a brochure on the research of Latvian geneticists. With courtesy that can be expected of the Japanese, he put it in his portfolio, but never responded to letters from the Academy of Sciences or even from the Japanese Embassy in Riga. Yes, it is difficult to see Latvia even on the world map, so we are not seen on the world stage. Why would anyone believe that there can be science at all in such a small country? Yamanaka himself has a stem cell research institute near Kyoto with a staff of 300, he also has an institute in California with 60 staff members to study the problems of regenerative medicine, and the annual budget of these institutes is the size of Latvia's annual budget. Such scientists, under the leadership of Yamanaka, are studying the properties of stem cells so that, in the personalized medicine of the future, healthy cells can be injected into traumatized organs to regenerate them.

That is absolutely ingenious. So why hasn't an equally ingenious covid vaccine been developed yet?

I can't comment. Apparently, science has not yet grown to that level. But when it comes to personalized medicine, the Nobel Laureate said that such manipulations would cost millions. Then one can wonder for how many people such medicine will be available... Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said wonderful words: Japan is the country that is the fastest to introduce innovations in medicine in a way that is widely available to the public. Maybe that's why there are so many people with such long lifespans in Japan. But perhaps the secret is to be found in their philosophy of life. However, here in Latvia, our scientists discover many things that the great countries take from us for the price of a cooperation project or commissioned research. And then the Nobel Prizes are also awarded to scientists from these large countries ... What do we see there? Scientists from America, Japan, Germany, Israel, France, Sweden, and other powerful countries. But there are also countries like the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia - can scientists from these countries join the ranks and hope for the Nobel Prize? We can only hope...

What is missing?

Size of the nation, national purposeful policies in support of science and communication on the world stage. Because the one and a half staff units who try to operate internationally and inform the world about our achievements from the Academy of Sciences are not enough.

So, simply put, Latvia does not have marketing and management in relation to scientific achievements.

I would put it differently. I have been abroad many times for research purposes, mostly in England, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands. Reading the periodicals of these countries, I have never encountered a Latvian tourism advertisement that would invite: go to Riga, it is a pearl of Art Nouveau, a great country of music, a place of brilliant scientists! But I've seen quite a few Estonian ads - they advertise medieval Tallinn, the Tallink ferry line, their tidy manors, and festivities in medieval castles. What is the return of the funds allocated to MEPRD and LIAA by the state and Europe? Probably the same thing happens with our science: our resonance seems to stop at the song festival choir's 20,000 voices echoing over the pines of Mežaparks. Of course, we have publications in scientific journals, we have patents in the Patent Office of the Republic of Latvia and in world bibliometric registers. But our inventions are caught by those countries that have an industry in the respective field, and they are able to bring to life in specific products what the Latvian scientists have talentedly discovered.

Are they, so to say, appropriating these discoveries?

No, it is legal. As soon as you publish your discovery on the so-called "open access" network, it is already public and accessible to everyone.

But what if the discovery is patented?

A scientific publication cannot be patented. The Patent Office has a description of the invention, a schematic diagram is placed there. But scientists have told me that they do not put the last keyword in the patent either - it remains as a mystery in the authors' masterpiece, just as a medieval master knew how to put a stone cross at 150 meters height in the tower of Chartres Cathedral tower or an artist knew how to mix the color to make it shine like an ultramarine - and these secrets were not revealed to anyone by the masters until the last moments of their life. The same has always been the case in science. So that others don't copy what could potentially be profitable for us. But the downside is that we keep our secrets, but we have no industry to turn that secret into a product with a product value. But, as another Nobel laureate told me in Kyoto: “Don't think that ten more groups of scientists around the world are not researching the same issue as you. And it is possible that they have come to the same discoveries that you. Only they - unlike you - have production, groups, state-supported industry.”

The talent of Latvian scientists has been talked about for decades.

Both I and many academics have discussed this with the cabinets of Kučinskis, Straujuma, Dombrovskis... Yes, our inventions and intellectual power are great for such a small country. But our inventions remain "on paper". The efficiency of scientists in our country is measured by the number of publications and patents filed. And there are some scientists who produce excellent publications in high-ranking journals and receive project money, well aware that the invention will either remain "on paper" or it will be used in another country.

How many more decades will we talk about this? And how much have we already talked about it? Everyone just nods their head and does nothing.

Imagine: there is a precise sum of money in the Latvian treasury, and the Latvian treasury needs to cover armaments, education, health, roads, the big government system, and so on. If Latvian industry is not able to generate more valuable products for which more money would flow into the Latvian budget, then nothing will change. It must be understood that selling high-quality products made from raw materials is more profitable than selling only raw materials.

Of course. But industry is needed for that. And it is below average. We need money to build factories... which we don't have. A vicious circle.

That's why we're standing in one spot. We have been in the European Union for almost twenty years, and the immoral misappropriation of EU funds began at the very beginning, which people, quoting Rainis, aptly called the "fat years", and the misuse has not ended to this day. But this money was given to Latvia to develop its infrastructure to build factories and production bases. Where did it go? Elsewhere money makes money, but here with us - miraculously - it just slips between our fingers. Meanwhile, a scientist is happy if he manages to add some money from a project to his small salary... to survive. Or to leave Latvia. At one time, Roberts Ķīlis, the Minister of Education and Science, said: "Let them leave!"

Everything sounds pretty hopeless, but...

... but there is something that keeps society going.

And what is this "something"?

Society is currently hyper nervous. It does not see the goals of the country's leaders. Who to believe? The President? The Prime Minister? Viņķele? Gravediggers? In my opinion, the only sages are scientists. A month ago, on the TV they showed off the rating chart. There, Dr. Pēteris Apinis had a much higher rating than politicians. Because he talks about society and its phobias.

He also talks to the public, I would add.

Jurijs Perevoščikovs and Uga Dumpis are also more popular than politicians. But they don't have to make decisions, they just make a prediction. Logically, the bad ones are politicians who take various uncoordinated actions...

And so what keeps society going?

The individual ability of each member of society to find a survival formula. Since the first moments of the pandemic, people have been buying property in remote corners of the countryside. Land, country houses up to Zilupe are bought out. Whoever can work remotely, works that way... Health, safety, harmony with nature, herbs, and tea. Of course, this is not real 21st-century life. This means that these people distance themselves voluntarily and enjoy living in a patriarchal but healthy environment. Technology and the urban world leaves them far behind, and they are unlikely to catch up to it. It is the individual way out for these people. But - what way should an urban person look for, who has to live on the same stairs with the residents of 12 other apartments? What will quench his doubts and fears? Church? Which denomination leaders are able to take on the role of comforter today? And does the secular power, which cannot do the job itself, want to entrust this mission to someone who knows it better? The best comforter is nature. Every day I see a lot of people walking, running and Nordic walking along the seashore. This is how they stabilize their psyche. What is destroyed by the workplace, by their daily lives, or by the media, people try to restore by being with nature. And - how interesting: people have started reading books again! It is definitely the path to spiritual stabilization, to recovery through critical thinking. But about that - some another time.