Makim Nikitin
Makim Petrovich Nikitin (; born September 23, 1986 in Moscow) is a Russian physicist and biophysicist, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. He is the Head of the Nanobiotechnology Laboratory at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the Scientific Director of the Nanobiomedicine program at the Sirius University of Science and Technology. He is a laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation (2024) for his discovery of the fundamental mechanism of DNA "molecular commutation".
Biography
He was born September 23, 1986, in Moscow. From 2004 to 2010 he Studied at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Physics; graduated with honors. In 2013 he defended his PhD dissertation, "Multifunctional Magnetically Controlled Nano- and Microagents and Methods for Their In Vivo Registration for Biomedical Applications," at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2014 he became the head of the Nanobiotechnology Laboratory at MIPT. In 2020 he was appointed Scientific Director of the Nanobiomedicine Department at NTU Sirius. In 2023 he was awarded a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences degree. In 2024 he was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation. Research Activities
Nikitin researches the creation of "smart" nanomaterials capable of targeted drug delivery and in vivo biosensing. In 2022–2024, he experimentally proved that the transmission of genetic information is possible through weak non-complementary interactions of DNA (“molecular commutation”)—a discovery that revises the classical double helix model.