Cancer treatment with stem cells in Russia will be waiting for a long time
"We are 15-20 years behind the West"
Nikolay Podorvanyuk, Vladimir Koryagin, "Gazeta.Ru»
Recently, the Ministry of Health of Russia has been making a lot of loud statements. So, at the end of 2014, it became known that a vaccine against the deadly Ebola fever was almost ready in Russia. Then "Newspaper.Ru" conducted an investigation and found out that no one intends to share details about the unique development. Meanwhile, the Ebola epidemic in Africa is not slowing down, and experimental vaccines have already been introduced in the United States, which are gradually being introduced into medical use.
Now the Minister of Health Veronika Skvortsova said that in the next two or three years cancer will be treated with stem cells in Russia.
"With these stem cells that have receptors, we send drugs only to the cancer cell itself and destroy it, and the body as a whole does not suffer," the minister said, noting that the method is at the stage of scientific research. According to her, stem cells in this case are used as so-called carriers, on which special targeted drugs are planted.
Department of Science "Newspapers.Ru" appealed to the Ministry of Health with a request to tell details about the developments that the minister told about. It was not possible to get a comment at the time of publication, so it was decided to find out the opinion of experts.
"I do not know, there are charlatans who advertise and claim that all diseases are treated with the help of stem cells. Today it is too early to talk about stem cell treatment, but this does not mean that it should not be done," he told the newspaper.Ru" Head of the Laboratory of Epigenetics of Development of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics SB RAS Doctor of Biological Sciences Suren Zakiyan. According to him, the use of cellular technologies is the future of modern medicine.
"A strong breakthrough in this area can be expected in Europe and the United States in the next five to six years. We are 15-20 years behind Western countries," Suren Zakiyan stated.
In September 2014, a symposium "The latest methods in cellular technologies in medicine" was organized in Novosibirsk with his participation. Its numerous participants – scientists from all over Russia – came to the conclusion that there is still not a single cell center in Russia that meets American or European requirements, although some laboratories work at a global level.
According to the editor-in-chief of the journal "Genes and Cells" Roman Deev, Veronika Skvortsova's words cannot but please, but they raise a number of questions.
The expert said that there are indeed several strong research centers associated with the clinic in Russia. First of all, this is a modern research complex in Moscow on Leninsky Prospekt - the D. Rogachev Federal Research and Clinical Center for Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology. In addition, the Blokhin Russian Cancer Research Center, the Hematology Research Center, the N.N. Petrov Research Institute of Oncology, Obninsk and Novosibirsk institutions have rich scientific traditions.
"In most cases, the research teams of these institutions have specialized laboratories. There are extremely few teams that work comparable to the best world practices," Roman Deev said.
The expert points out that in the context of Skvortsova's words, it is not entirely clear what is meant by the term "cancer". Apparently, we are talking about all malignant tumor diseases, and this group includes not only cancer.
For example, malignant diseases of hematopoietic tissue and blood – leukemias and lymphomas – have been treated for about half a century with the use of transplantation of hematopoietic cells of bone marrow and umbilical cord blood. Such transplants are necessary to restore normal hematopoiesis after the destruction of malignant cells with the help of potent drugs.
"For at least 10 years, the main methodological approaches to the treatment of melanoma, also not cancer in the strict medical sense, have been developed with the help of dendritic cell vaccines, moreover, these achievements have been marked by government awards," Roman Deev stated. "The technology of creating T–cell antitumor vaccines with chimeric antigenic receptors has been an undoubted high-tech of the last two years."
The expert noted that it is a thankless task to interpret the words of the minister without specific instructions to the research groups.
"As for publications, it is no secret that 2/3 of medical and diagnostic biotechnologies in the world are devoted in one form or another to the fight against malignant tumors. The share of domestic efforts in this flow of information is woefully small," Roman Deev said.
According to him, the process of creating and implementing medical technology takes a long time, even if the main original idea is borrowed from foreign colleagues, as most often happens.
"If you carefully read the minister's quote, then we are talking about bringing the technology to the stage of clinical trials. A period of two to three years is quite realistic for conducting preclinical studies, of course, provided the "green light" in terms of the research budget, opportunities to work on transgenic animal lines," Roman Deev said. "In part, preclinical studies will provide information on the feasibility of moving to the stage of clinical trials, which may take an indefinitely long period."
At the same time, it is worth explaining that cellular technologies in oncology are not an independent treatment option used in monotherapy mode – as a rule, they are elements of complex therapy.
"In addition, the research community has no confidence that the state will not continue working on the infamous bill "On the circulation of cellular products ...", because of which any clinical research related to cellular technologies has been virtually discontinued in our country for about four years. If, despite the difficulties that arose during the discussion of the bill, it will be adopted in these two or three years, then any research, including preclinical, will have to be carried out anew, already according to the requirements of the new law," Roman Deev summed up.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru07.04.2015