— You come from a family with a background in literature and humanities. Your father is a famous Soviet philologist and translator of ancient and German literature, Solomon Konstantinovich Apt, and your mother, Ekaterina Vasilievna Starikova, a literary scholar specializing in Russian prose. How did you end up being a biologist?
— I knew I wanted to be a biologist from the time when I didn’t even fully comprehend yet what kind of family I was born in. It was probably around the age of five or six.

— What are you referring to?
— Entomology. I joined an entomology study group in my teens, and later when I applied to the Moscow University School of Biology in 1968, I already kept this field of science and this department in mind. But then I was given a transcript of the 1948 VASKhNIL session to read overnight, and I ended up joining the department of genetics.

— Just in an act of protest?
— Yes.

— I see. And what branch of entomology was it?
— Since it stemmed from my childhood, the classics: beetles and butterflies. It hasn’t changed. Here on the walls you can see some items which I bought just as a decor. Though, at my summer house I have an actual collection.

— Collected locally?
— Yes, only in one village.

— And then you graduated from the department of genetics…
— I never graduated, actually. I was expelled during my fourth year.

— For reading what you shouldn’t have?
— Nay, not entirely. It was a complex combination of failing the practical part of my botany course in Chashnikovo (which, however, allowed me to successfully study until the fourth year and even pass the major practicum) and a telegraph message, a congratulation on Solzhenitsyn’s fiftieth birthday… The university decided that they’d had enough and it should be put to a stop. So eventually I graduated from the pedagogical university.

— Changed a major, you may call it?
— I started working and then enrolled in the pedagogical institute. And it was a unique place, may I add. It was called Moscow Pedagogical Institute for Correspondence Studies and had the status of an evening school for Moscovites. It took me eight actual years to complete one and a half academic years there.

— How did you find your way back to science?
— I didn’t walk out, to begin with. I was employed at the Institute of General Genetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences under Igor Egorov, in the Histocompatibility Genetics Laboratory. When he [Igor] escaped to the States in 1978, the lab was dismissed. However, by then I had already been after a job at the Institute for Tuberculosis, as I was very neatly lured into studying the genetics of tuberculosis. Not in the pathogen, but the host, or more precisely, laboratory mice.

— Is the mouse model of tuberculosis a relevant genetic model when we talk about the disease in humans?
— I’d say very. If you take proper mice and compare them to people suffering from tuberculosis, you’d discover a very similar scenario: from pathology and immune responses to the dynamics and dosages that cause the disease. However, there’s one crucial factor that is rarely taken into account. Lots of people, unfortunately including biologists, consider Homo sapiens as the genetically heterogeneous species, while Mus musculus as just a mouse representing all mice in their entirety. But mice are as diverse, just as people are.
40 years ago we have started by taking 30 inbred mouse strains that we had thanks to the Institute of General Genetics collection, more precisely thanks to Igor Egorov. We identically infected all mice with tuberculosis and saw a tremendous diversity: in the number of mycobacteria in organs, in the life span, in lung pathology. Some were very susceptible and some were highly resistant. Nevertheless, almost the entire community of researchers, except perhaps three or four labs in the world, is working on one of the most TB-resistant mouse strain, C57BL/6. It’s a good bargain, no doubt, — those mice are easily accessible, and can be bought in millions through organizations like the Jackson Laboratory, for instance. Then we look at the human population, among which about 25% is believed to be TB-infected, and see that only a fraction of a percent develops clinical TB. Ironically, we compare these TB patients, who are susceptible by definition, with mice from one of the most TB-resistant strains. These TB-resistant mice only get sick because they were infected with high doses of mycobacteria. And yet, we try to understand the genetics of infection control relying on such comparisons. In my opinion, such an approach leads nowhere because it doesn’t basically model anything. Instead, one should take a highly susceptible mouse and infect it with a low dose of bacteria. In this case, it models exactly what happens in the human population. It’s generally accepted that humans become infected with one to three mycobacteria. Someone simply coughs or sneezes it out, and another person inhales it.

— Three mycobacteria are enough to trigger the disease?
— Yes, it is in fact enough. Tuberculosis is a social disease, and there’s nothing to be done about it. One should keep their life “clean and tidy”, I’d say. You should eat on clean plates, not blow your nose at each other, cover your mouth when coughing, wash your hands before eating. Although, the latter isn’t related to tuberculosis, there are many other diseases out there.

— So, we have naturally switched to a discussion of another disease, currently an even more prevalent one, the coronavirus infection. Virology, immunology, and evolutionary biology have suddenly become probably the most important science fields in the world.
— And that’s logical and reasonable. Of course, this trend will pass, like all trends do, but I hope that some sort of residue will linger. I believe that the epidemics of the future will be perceived not as horror stories, but as a part of reality.

— After the first SARS outbreak in 2003, we had every chance to figure out that it wouldn’t be the last.
— I try to stand back from the coronavirus problem as much as I can.

— How do you mean that exactly? Looks like anyone who relates even slightly to biology is forced to comment on the topic.
— I am very meticulous in commenting. I have been reached to comment many times, but I mainly rejected arguing that I’m not an epidemiologist, not a public health professional, or someone of the sort. Everyone should stay within their field of expertise.

— On the one hand, it seems good when professionals understand the boundaries of their expertise and don’t comment on issues they are not fully competent in. On the other hand, there are experts, even possessing the same credentials, who aren’t deterred by this.
— They make up a huge majority! Don’t you agree with the presumption that only about 2% of people talk about what they truly know, while others talk nonsense?

— Well, and what should an average taxpayer, who needs to decide whether to get vaccinated or not, do in that case?
— Get vaccinated.

— Fine. “Get vaccinated,” says Professor Apt, an expert in human genetics, rather mouse genetics. While some other Professor Pilyulkin, MD, PhD, claims that vaccines are toxic and we should instead focus on building our own immunity.
— I am also an infectious disease specialist, after all.

— And Dr. Pilyulkin is an obstetrician-gynecologist.
— That’s a poor argument in terms of vaccination.

— And yet somehow closer to the people.
— Much closer in a sense, but I would still ask an immunologist for advice.

— However, you just mentioned that you don’t comment.
— Most of the time I in fact do not but you inquired about vaccination, not COVID.

— Ok, should one get vaccinated against COVID?
— They should, and especially against COVID. I found the early data on Argentina and San Marino (and now Hungary too) quite convincing. I’m talking specifically about the Sputnik vaccine, although Pfizer seems the better option in my opinion. It has been shown quite reliably on fairly large samplings that vaccinated people die less frequently than non-vaccinated. And I think it is good news.

— It’s good indeed that people aren’t dying. What about the side effects?
— Personally, it took me quite a long time to decide whether do vaccination or not. The reason was very simple, actually. Both my wife and I are over seventy, I have diabetes, and she has chronic bronchiolitis. A nice combo to get vaccinated against respiratory diseases! Nevertheless, we got vaccinated because we both wish to continue our pursuits in biology for a bit longer.

— Did the lack of data on Russia alarm you?
— I’m always alarmed that in Russia when you try to grab something you find nothing. Of course, I’m alarmed, but I’m ready to think broadly, Argentina is enough for me.

— Not everyone is ready. When half the population refuses to get vaccinated due to completely obscurantist reasons, is it legitimate to force them to, administratively I mean?
— This is a very complex question. I would say that the prerequisite for legitimacy to insist on something at the administrative level is the lack of nonsense, such as holding public events during a pandemic. Also, what’s happening in public transport is a disaster: a total disregard for basic rules of wearing face masks and keeping social distance. After taking a good care about these issues, it would be possible to exert some unpleasant pressure on those who refuse to get vaccinated. But only under these conditions.

— Another question is not about uncompromising anti-vaxxers, but about those other… knuckleheads? What to do in terms of confrontation with them? Moreover, what should be the policy about the carriers? They say in China, if someone in an apartment block gets COVID, the entryway door gets sealed. Where is that thin line between taking it too far and being too careless and letting the epidemic spread?
— Do you see how much of a complex the issue is?

— Why should I ask simple questions?
— Actually, no one knows how to answer it.

— Hold on, you just mentioned that you’re an epidemiologist…
— I said I’m an infectionist, there’s a difference. I believe that the failure of the vaccination campaign, at least early in the pandemic, is entirely the fault of the authorities.
I’ve never witnessed anything more stupid in my life. My apologies though, I’ve been living in this country long enough… They should have immediately put to the market all available vaccines and additionally announced that Sputnik can be taken for free while foreign vaccines can be purchased. By the way, we could have observed another interesting metric… Instead, at higher levels, as always, it was decided to win the vaccine production Olympics, and it ended up just like the Olympics.

— Perhaps there is also a purely psychological aspect. The Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines have constantly been reported on TV to have severe side effects, and it seems the way people perceive this is…
—…if those are bad, ours is a bullshit.

— To switch from the pandemic, what was the most interesting thing happening in your field of research?
— There’s always something interesting happening in my field of research, and it’s happening at a significant level. I study host-parasite interactions. I don’t know a biology more complex than that, I can’t even imagine it. Any kind of more or less significant advancements in this field are always jaw-dropping.
For about fifteen years now, as the genetic control of intracellular infections became clearer, I’ve been amazed at how different the findings from reverse genetics and forward genetics are. In reverse genetics we knock out genes for cytokines, their receptors, certain signaling pathways. Eventually we see what happens when you spoil something, and draw conclusions from that. In forward genetics, which originates from Mendel’s approach, research is conducted differently. The task is to find phenotypes that can be measured and analyzed, and then identify genes responsible for these phenotypes. It started with the whole-genome mapping, followed by the whole-genome sequencing.
These two approaches have been prevalent in my field for many years and have produced very different outcomes. Initial physiological data regarding the consequences of gene knockout have been confirmed. If you break something, it’s likely to result in unfortunate outcomes when talking infections. However, in natural populations, organisms with knocked-out genes, let’s say, for gamma interferon or its receptors, do not survive and leave no progeny. When we started to analyze which genes actually work in populations among organisms that are severely or mildly ill or not ill at all, and what happens when many genes interact, we spotted an involvement of transcription factors, cell migration factors, allelic variants of the major histocompatibility complex, etc. We observed that nothing is severely disrupted, nothing is drastically damaged, only the binding constants of ligands to receptors varied.

— Why hasn’t the allele of the major histocompatibility complex, which is “bad” in terms of TB incidence, been removed from a population where on average 25% of individuals are infected with tuberculosis?
— The impact of these alleles is typically no more than 20%. This percentage is the contribution that this allele makes to the overall phenotype. With 97% of the population resistant to TB in general, for reasons unknown, the selection is weak.

— May this allele be useful for something else?
— This is possible. Now resistance alleles are being sought after even more actively than susceptibility ones. And it makes sense: we need to comprehend not just why we get ill, but also how we defend ourselves.

— What’s the point of studying biology at all?
— That’s not a question for me, as I made my decisions quite early in my life. Back in those heroic times, I didn’t understand why people pursue science, I was simply always intrigued by it. Later on, it became somewhat clear to me that nothing is more complex than biology, and it was a kind of challenge for me.

— Why does society need individuals who study biology? Why should taxpayers fund your challenge?
— I care very little about that.

— Hold on, what if the tax authorities come to you and say, “Professor Apt, we’ve been supporting you for 40 years…”
— They had not  supported me. At least not the tax authorities.

— In this context, the tax authorities are the representative of taxpayers.
— There are numerous responses to that. Firstly, those who initially supported me no longer represent the government, so when they were supporting me at public expense, it was a different societal structure. Secondly, society, regardless of its structure, I believe, has gradually and slowly become convinced that without science, it stagnates in a rather underdeveloped state, and becomes quite uncomfortable to live in. Whether society should progress at all, is rather a philosophical question.

— Does a society stagnate without science or without sufficient technological progress?
— I’m not aware of any technological progress outside and without science.

— What about technology developed in other countries, for example? Let’s imagine that all scientific advancements are documented and published, and we can simply use them.
— I have absolutely no interest in where something was originally created. I’m talking about both the nation and humanity as a whole.

— Wow! Let’s refocus on the national level. Why is it a bad habit if a country uses technology that is based on freely available science done elsewhere?
— It’s hard for me to imagine such a country.

— Singapore? South Korea? Finland?
— Science there is developing very well now. Whenever technology begins to develop on the basis of advances made outside, there will surely be someone in the country who wants to expand what has been done. It’s always like that. If you wish, I have numerous aesthetic disagreements with the authorities, and if the state refuses to compensate scientists for their work, I find such an approach aesthetically incorrect.

— Nevertheless. What I want to hear from you is a simple and convincing argument why it’s wrong to use what has already been published by other scientists, let’s say, in Nature or Science? Why is it wrong to make our own developments based on these publications, while not publishing anything ourselves, because in that case someone else will make those developments?
— Such an approach will lead us into a deadlock. The fact is, if there are no researchers in Russia who publish in Nature and Science, soon there will be no one left in the country who reads these journals.

— Great. You repeated my thought, which even made it into Strategy 2020, do you recall such a document?
— I was not involved with it.

— Neither was I. However, one of its authors spoke with me, and I told him that the real tragedy will be not when nobody around publishes in Nature, but when nobody can read Nature.

This interview was initially published in the Troitsky Variant—Science newspaper, issue 344 of December 21, 2021.

*The media outlet has been designated as a foreign agent in Russia