Cellular 3D structures, for example, organoids, are an excellent model for studying and developing treatments for various diseases, including hereditary ones. Therefore, they are increasingly being used in biomedical research. From the point of view of safety and efficacy, recombinant adeno‐associated viral (rAAV) vectors are currently most in demand for the delivery of various transgenes for gene replacement therapy or other applications. The delivery of transgenes using rAAV vectors to various types of organoids is an urgent task, however, it is (...) associated with a number of problems that are discussed in this review. Cellular heterogeneity and specifics of cultivation of 3D structures determine the complexity of rAAV delivery and are sometimes associated with low transduction efficiency. This review surveys the main ways to solve emerging problems and increase the efficiency of transgene delivery using rAAVs to organoids. A clear understanding of the stage of development of the organoid, its cellular composition and the presence of surface receptors will allow obtaining high levels of organoid transduction with existing rAAV vectors. (shrink)

Recombinant adeno‐associated viruses (rAAVs) are promising vectors for the delivery of various genetic constructs into eukaryotic cells. rAAVs have a number of properties that make it possible to successfully use them both in vitro and in vivo. Purification and concentration of rAAV vectors are critical for achieving high viral titer, stability, efficiency, and purity. This review systematically analyses all available purification approaches. The purification methods described in this work differ substantially from each other in mechanisms, efficiency, labor time, and cost. (...) Researchers have to choose a purification algorithm depending on the purpose of their work. We strive to simplify the choice of the necessary and sufficient technique based on the experimental needs and available resources of the laboratory. (shrink)

Philosophy in Russia covers its subject broadly and in detail from the eighteenth century to Lenin and beyond into the post-Stalin period. It offers a continuous history of the development of philosophical thought in Russia, and portraits of individual and influential thinkers. The author devotes careful analysis to radicals such as Bakunin, Herzen, Chernyshevsky and Lavrov, and to the Marxists such as Plekhanov and Lenin. He also discusses the thought of writers such as Kireevsky, Leontiev and Solovyev, and examines (...) the philosophically relevant ideas of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. He also discusses Russian thinkers in exile, such as Berdyaev, Frank, N. O. Lossky and Shestov.For historical reasons philosophical thought in Russia has tended to become socially or politically committed thought. To what extent genuine philosophical thought has proved to be compatible with the monopoly enjoyed by Marxism-Leninism in the fields of education and publishing is a crucial question discussed in this authoritative study. (shrink)

The article analyzes the ethical and theological content of the apocryphal Syrian "autobiography" of St. Clement of Rome, as well as its early Slavic translation. The study uses historical-philosophical, patristic and philological methodology to outline the specific teachings, attributed to St. Clement by this Greek-speaking Syrian text from the pseudo-Clementine cycle. The methods of comparative textology and translation studies are used to analyze the features of the Slavic version of the work. The study revealed that, contrary to the ideas of (...) the publisher of the Slavic version, P. Lavrov, the translation was undoubtedly made according to the archaic, pre-metaphrasic version of the work. Therefore, it can be dated to the ninth century and come from the school of Cyril and Methodius. The popularity of the monument among Slavic readers is partly explained by the archaic features of the original version of the work preserved in the translation, such as graphic imagery, expressive presentation, and numerous dialogues. Such a lively account facilitated the perception of the conceptually rich ethical content of the work. At the heart of both Greek and Slavic versions is the ethical category of philanthropy, which figures as a central Christian virtue. Much of the Epitome is devoted to a detailed explanation of this category and its distinction from other virtues. In the original, the ethics of philanthropy is opposed to the astrological ideology represented by Clement’s father Faust. Faust's views are based on the natural philosophical ideas of the early Greek Stoics. Apostle Peter, Clement's teacher, responds to his arguments from the standpoint of Judeo-Christian monotheism, referring to the biblical history of his people. Thus, Hellenism is confronted with biblical monotheism. So, Epitome appears a kind of argument in the controversy between Gentile Christians and Judeo-Christians, which has troubled the Syrian Church for centuries. However, in translation, this clash of worldviews remains obscured, as the translator does not seem to recognize either the terminology of Stoic natural philosophy, or astrological issues, or the debate between the traditions of Peter and Paul in Syria. Thus, all the Stoic terminology of Faust is reduced to a single concept of "being". Therefore, in the translated version, the controversy is not so much between Christianity and astrology, as between ethics and "ontology". Instead, the translator enriches the philosophical outline of the work with polysemic Slavic vocabulary, which sheds new light on the role of the bishop in Peter’s instructions to Clement. Comparison of the Greek and Slavic versions of the Epitome – an autobiography attributed to St. Clement – with his only authentic work, 1Corinthians, allowed to draw another unexpected conclusion. All these works are not only devoted to one main problem - the restoration of peace in the controversial Christian community, but also offer similar ways out of the crisis through brotherly love, solidarity and respect for the otherness of the fellow Christians. This may indicate either that the author of the Syrian apocrypha was inspired by the true Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, or that the image of St. Clement, that developed in the early tradition, dictated the message of the pseudo-epigraph quite powerfully. Due to this consonance, the apocryphal work of the Syrian Ebionites did to some extent acquaint Slavic readers with the ideas of Clement of Rome, whose only authentic work was almost unknown in the Middle Ages. (shrink)

In the second half of the nineteenth century utilitarianism and naturalism dominated Russian ethical thought. The Russian intelligentsia, nurtured on the works of N. G. Chernyshevskii, P. L. Lavrov, and D. I. Pisarev, regarded utilitarianism as an alternative to all the ideologies that harness man to the service of "ends higher than himself." It was thought that only man, as a concrete, living individual, could be regarded as the end and purpose of activity. Such concepts as individual interests, utility, (...) and calculus became the cornerstones of practical morality, while scientific studies of human nature became the foundation of theoretical ethics. Any mention of "a priori duty" or "categorical imperative" were regarded as manifestations of religious authoritarianism and political conservatism. (shrink)

By what process was the Jacobin identity transplanted into nineteenth-century Russian radical culture? According to the conventional account, the Jacobin label was coined by proponents like Zainevskij and Tkaev. Lenin, in turn, is said to have derived his Jacobin identity from them, thus revealing the non-Marxian source of his political ideas. This article contests that interpretation through a study of the origin and spread of the Jacobin terminology in post-emancipation Russia. I show that the Jacobin identity in Russia was invented (...) by anti-Jacobin populists and that there were scarcely any self-proclaimed Jacobins prior to Lenin. I also reconstruct the path by which Lenin came to identify with French Jacobinism. That path remained within the territory of Marxist theory from beginning to end. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Creating Life: The Aesthetic Utopia of Russian ModernismJohn GoodliffeCreating Life: The Aesthetic Utopia of Russian Modernism, edited by Irina Paperno and Joan Delaney Grossman; x & 288 pp. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994, $39.95.In describing the history of a country’s literature, one may well be tempted to divide it into separate compartments and so lose sight of the continuity which is, in the final analysis, more worthy of (...) attention. Historians of Russian literature have often succumbed to this temptation and it became almost commonplace to read that in Russia the Realism of the nineteenth century gave way to the Symbolism which began in the twentieth; that Symbolism gave way to Futurism; and that in due course all the earlier “-isms” were swept aside by the Socialist Realism of the Soviet period. For Marxist-oriented Soviet [End Page 371] historians such preoccupation with compartmentalization was obsessive. This makes more than welcome a series of essays which is at pains to emphasize the essential connections and kinship between these various “-isms.”Four of the seven essays are intended to demonstrate how the Symbolists, while ostensibly breaking with the earlier tradition of positivism (the idea that art’s essential purpose is to help build a better world), were, in a number of important respects, continuing and even reinforcing what they claimed to despise. Thus, regarding art and life as indissolubly linked, they attempted to turn life into art and art into life. Their endeavors frequently led them into behavior that now appears “eccentric, at times even ridiculous” (p. 166). Olga Matich describes how Blok, Bely, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, and Zinaida Gippius attempted to model their sexual relationships on the pattern of the “erotic utopia” described by Vladimir Solov’ev in his seminal The Meaning of Love (1892–94). Joan Delaney Grossman discusses Nina Petrovskaia’s relationships with Bely and Valery Briusov. Michael Wachtel shows how Viacheslav Ivanov attempted to overcome his grief at the death of his first wife by using his creative powers to make contact with her “beyond the grave.”Irene Masing-Delic traces the Pygmalion myth through Pushkin, Baratynsky, Turgenev, and Chernyshevsky to the Symbolists who were especially attracted by a myth which showed how an artist could create life and even conquer death. In “Andrei Bely and the Argonauts’ mythmaking,” Alexander Lavrov considers the role of the “Argonaut” circle in establishing a Russian Symbolist culture in the first years of the twentieth century. The Argonauts’ credo was “life-creation” rather than “art-creation,” and they claimed to make no distinction between “talent for living” and “talent for writing.” Lavrov argues that the failure of the relationship between Bely and Nina Petrovskaia marked the disintegration of “Argonautism” and the culture they sought to create. It is left to Irina Gutkin in the concluding essay to guide us through the grotesqueries of Futurism into the apparently diametrically opposed, sanitized world of Socialist Realism, by way of Constructivism, Marxism, and Meyerholdian bio-mechanics, leaving us in little doubt that, appearances to the contrary, each of these movements was concerned with turning art into life and using it to create a better world. So ultimately, as she neatly sums up the thesis of the whole collection, “The aesthetic utopian ideal of art creating life, which took shape at the beginning of the twentieth century, was fused with the utilitarian tradition of the 1860s” (p. 181).I have deliberately reserved for the end comment on Irina Paperno’s introduction and opening article (“The Meaning of Art: Symbolist Theories”) in order to emphasize the manifest contribution she and her co-editor, Joan Delaney Grossman, have made to ensuring the coherence of this admirable collection. Professor Paperno’s clear and concise coverage of her topics makes it evident that she was determined that the book should not turn into the kind of bits-and-pieces patchwork that too many publications of this sort tend to [End Page 372] become without a firm editorial hand at the helm. Her earlier book on Chernyshevsky (Chernyshevsky and the Age of Realism, 1988) and Irene Masing-Delic’s Abolishing Death; a Salvation Myth of Russian Twentieth-Century Literature (1992), form the first two parts of... (shrink)