Success as Novosibirsk State now rubs shoulders with the likes of Yale and Harvard in the United States and Oxford and Cambridge in Britain.
Nematodes moving and eating again for the first time since the Pleistocene age in major scientific breakthrough, say experts.
A dozen 'nano centres' are to be set up around Russia with at least two in Siberia, said RUSNANO boss Anatoly Chubais.
Birds that Vladimir Putin tried to save have 'almost disappeared' due to illegal shooting.
Bone-cracking cold, Gulag prison camps, oil flares visible from space, and bleak industrial cities - this is a common Western stereotype of Siberia.
Unique archeological and paleontological sites face destruction from gangs seeking to raid and sell prehistoric remains.
Now the prickly rodent lives no closer than 2,000 kilometres away, but its remains - recently dated - are scattered in caves of the Altai Mountains.
Research in some of Russia's remotest regions on 43,000 year old bones may have a very modern application in saving lives of coronary patients.