Letter from the Editors

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The Editorial Board and the Editorial Council are delighted to bring to your attention the ninth issue of Acta Naturae. We have maintained the conventional format of previous issues, and we offer several reviews, original articles, and the popular Forum section, which we believe will be of great interest. Regretfully, and in spite of numerous attempts, we were unable to get clinicians, experts in the sphere of experimental medicine, involved with this issue. We are on the lookout for serious research made by Russian and foreign scientists in the field of fundamental medicine for our subsequent issues. It is no coincidence that a new department has been established in the Russian Academy of Sciences, with a mission to focus efforts in this field. Therefore, we invite the members of this newly founded department to share the most interesting developments and their views in our Forum section in subsequent issues of this journal. We offer to your attention the review made by V.V. Pleshkan et al., which is devoted to gene therapy for melanoma. In our opinion, the review is representative of the modern tendencies that exist in the directed therapy of malignant tumors. The review by M.V. Nesterchuk et al. deals with the rather interesting field of the posttranslational modifications of ribosomal proteins of the prokaryotic cell. regardless of the vast pool of studies devoted to the prokaryotic ribosome, including the contemporary X-ray diffraction studies, the functional role of the posttranslational modifications of ribosomal proteins still remains a puzzle. the review by L.A. Dykman and N.G. Khlebtsov is devoted to gold nanoparticles and their application in biology and medicine. the review contains a considerable amount of bibliographic data; we believe it will be of equal interest to seasoned researchers, undergraduates, and PhD students. the insightful population genetics study by V.A. Stepanov et al. opens the section of experimental articles in this issue. the articles devoted to the components of innate immunity are conventionally published in this issue. the article by O.V. Samsonova et al. is devoted to the structural and functional studies of the antimicrobial peptide Ltc1-K that is toxic to eukaryotic cells. the article by K.V. Lobanov et al. deals with the topic of the mechanism-dependent therapeutic effect of drugs. the studies in the field of the physical chemistry of trans-membrane proteins (K.S. Mineevet al.) are traditionally strong. composite authors (O.A. Zorina et al.) present clinical research through the use of modern methods of DNA diagnostics. It is exulting that articles relating to physiology have begun to appear in the journal. the article by Yu.G. Odnoshivkina et al. devoted to the activation of P2-adrenoreceptors should be mentioned in this context. the Forum section offers you information on the visit by a delegation from the National Institute of Health (mH, u. S.) to the Russian Academy of Sciences. the authors of the article look into the prospects of future international collaboration and emphasize the fact that, after an affectedly long interruption in official scientific contacts, both parties have finally found it worthwhile to resume dialogue. the section also features an interview with Deputy Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation Sergei Iva-nets devoted to the crucial issue of financial support for contemporary science and the problem of the “150-million-rouble grants.” Although some of the views in the interview are not shared by the members of the Editorial Board and the Editorial council of this journal, we have always stood for the diversity multipolarity of views in this section, and we intend to continue publishing interesting materials and articles devoted to topics that have the attention of Russian researchers