The fight against old age and the prolongation of youth on the TV channel "Culture"

Vladimir Skulachev: "Our goal is to intervene in the process of human aging"

On April 12, Cosmonautics Day, several large-scale projects were launched on the Kultura TV channel at once: Jacques Malaterra's documentary series "At the Origins of Humanity", the talk show "Press Club XXI", as well as a new educational media project "ACADEMIA". The multi-million audience of the TV channel will have a unique opportunity to attend public lectures by leading Russian scientists, the first persons of Russian science. Watch programs from Monday to Thursday at 18:00, repeat on the night air and on the website tvkultura.ru .

Nobel laureate physicist Zhores Alferov, Director of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrei Sakharov, Professor Sergey Kapitsa, famous linguist and philosopher Vyacheslav Ivanov, Patriarch of Russian archeology Valentin Yanin, biochemist academician Vladimir Skulachev, bioengineer academician Konstantin Scriabin, founder of the leading school of protein engineering Mikhail Kirpichnikov and many others will ascend to the All-Russian television department.

Among the first was a meeting with biochemist academician Vladimir Skulachev with a lecture "Nomo Sapiens Liberatus: a man freed from the tyranny of the genome" (April 14-15). We managed to talk with Vladimir Skulachev on the eve of the premiere of his lecture. (Evgenia Andreeva, the press service of the TV channel "Culture", spoke.)

– The Kultura TV channel is taking a bold step and launching the ACADEMIA project, now that there is so much talk about the plight of science. Why did you decide to participate in the project?

– Recently, the myth of the "death of Russian science" has become increasingly widespread. Yes, of course, we are going through hard times, we have a lot of problems and those in power are not in too much of a hurry to help us. But we are still alive! And we really have new ideas and projects in our country that promise real breakthroughs in science, capable of attracting both venerable scientists and young specialists. It is impossible to talk about a person as a dead person when he is still alive – even if he is not in the best shape. In our opinion, it is necessary to convey this idea in relation to domestic science to society.

– The topic of your lecture is "Nomo sapiens liberatus: a man freed from the tyranny of the genome". You are talking about a problem that you have been dealing with for many years – the fight against old age and the prolongation of youth. How did the work on the project "Jonah Skulachev" begin?

– I got into this area quite unexpectedly for myself. All my life I have been engaged in bioenergetics – the science of energy transformations in living systems. Unfortunately, this word itself has recently been usurped and "polluted" by shamans, psychics and the like by strange people who have nothing to do with real bioenergetics – a science at the junction of biochemistry and biophysics.

One of the main achievements of bioenergetics of the twentieth century is the work on the study of the structure and development of chondriosomes (the totality of all chondriosomes, or mitochondria) – these are organoids constantly present in animal and plant cells, providing cellular respiration, as a result of which energy is released or accumulated in an easily used form. For this proof, in the 1970s, my colleagues and I from Moscow State University used very unusual substances - lipophilic cations. These are compounds that are both hydrophobic (i.e. fatty) and positively charged. Such substances (in the same 70s they were called "Skulachev ions" with the light hand of the famous American biochemist David Green) are able to penetrate through any biological membranes like ghosts and accumulate exclusively in mitochondria.

40 years ago, we proposed the idea that this property of penetrating ions can be used for targeted delivery of the necessary substances to the mitochondria. However, it did not go beyond the general idea. Yes, at that time it was not very clear what exactly should be addressed in the power plant of our cells.

However, in recent years it has been discovered that mitochondria and the free radicals formed in them play, if not a key, then certainly some significant role in human aging and the development of many senile diseases. And then it becomes clear what exactly needs to be delivered to the mitochondria – an antioxidant that could neutralize these free radicals.

I must admit that this idea first came to mind not to me, but to my colleague from Cambridge, Michael Murphy. But the construction of the substance that he made on the basis of our ions turned out to be suboptimal and, perhaps, inapplicable in practice at all. As soon as he told me about his work, it became obvious to me what exactly needs to be changed in the formula of the compound in order to fundamentally increase its effectiveness. Michael refused to do this, saying that a whole business project has already been built on the basis of his substance, it is going to clinical trials and it is no longer possible to change the formula.

What was to be done? In 2005, we synthesized our version of the mitochondrial antioxidant and it really turned out to be fundamentally better than its English counterpart. At that moment, we decided to start our own investment project and are still stubbornly competing with a Western company that is simultaneously developing a drug based on Michael Murphy's substance.

Our goal is to try to interfere with the aging process of a person with the help of the compounds we have invented. Of course, I would just like to stop this process, but if such an intervention proves useful in the fight against some senile disease, then this will be a significant result of our project.

– Tell us, what new results have been achieved over the past few years?

– Over the 5 years of our project, we have conducted a huge complex of studies on a variety of biological systems – animals, isolated organs and tissues, cultured cells and isolated mitochondria. All this has been published in several dozen articles in international scientific journals.

On the basis of Moscow University, we managed to assemble a team of more than 300 scientists working on the study of the properties of our substances. This became possible because the work is 100% funded from private money as part of a commercial investment project. These are the very innovations that many in our country are talking about, but few people have seen them.

In general, I can say that our hypothesis is confirmed in animals – we manage to interfere with the aging process by purposefully delivering an antioxidant to the mitochondria.

Unexpectedly for ourselves, the greatest progress has been achieved in the fight against certain signs of aging, primarily senile eye diseases. This allowed our project to develop its first drug – eye drops based on the mitochondrial antioxidant SkQ1. I am proud to say that this year the project has started clinical trials of this drug in several Moscow eye hospitals.

– The essence of your theory is that old age is a program embedded in our genes that can be canceled. But after all, a person dies not only from old age, there is also a sudden death that does not depend on age. How can you explain this?

– Do not confuse these two concepts – old age and death. Old age can be defined as a gradual and coordinated weakening of the body's functions with age. This primarily leads to an age-dependent increase in the probability of death. We are not going to deal with the "immortality pill" and other nonsense invented by narrow-minded journalists. We are talking exclusively about trying to somehow influence the process of senility of a person.

– Has it been possible to find out when the human body begins to age?

– No one knows for sure. We consider aging as the final stage of ontogenesis – the development of an individual. The same as embryonic development, child growth, puberty. It is known that some systems in our body begin to age very early. For example, our immune system reaches its maximum capacity somewhere around 15 years. At 25, she's already worse. That is, it can be argued that aging by this parameter begins in fact in adolescence.

– Scientists from all over the world are struggling to solve the problem of aging and the possibility of defeating it. There are many scientific theories of aging. Does your hypothesis have many opponents and supporters?

– We are still largely white crows. The overwhelming number of gerontologists and, especially, geriatricians consider aging an inevitable process of accumulation of errors. We claim that it is programmed by nature and this program is written in our genes. However, it should be noted that our point of view is gaining more and more supporters. An article signed by 35 leading world scientists has just been published in the international journal Aging, claiming that the fact of programmed aging has been proven. In particular, thanks to our modest efforts.

– Which of the experiments and discoveries of other scientists in this field do you consider the most significant and promising?

– Rachel Buffenstein from the USA recently showed that the so–called naked mole rat (an African rodent the size of a mouse) lives up to 28 years instead of two or three mice. At the same time, the probability of dying at any given time is very small and, most strikingly, does not depend on the age of the animal. The naked digger does not know cancer, cardiovascular diseases, strokes, diabetes, age-related decline in immunity. His cells are not afraid of oxygen radicals. In the person of this unsightly animal, we have received a laboratory model of an ageless mammal, the study of which can open the way to victory over aging and senile diseases.

– You are a well–known academician, an accomplished person, you have never aspired to fame. Why did you decide to launch a broad scientific discussion and make your research public?

– At first, out of inexperience, I ignored the media and sent away journalists from mass popular publications who resorted to me. But it almost ruined our whole project. One of the yellow newspapers, having received my next refusal to give an interview, concocted a lampoon from fragmentary information about our work and turned to famous Muscovites with the following question: "How do you feel about the fact that the oligarchs will live forever?" (The question was based on the wild idea that a portion of our relatively simple substance should cost a billion dollars). Our investor was offended and almost closed the whole project. That's why we decided that we should explain to society what exactly we do. Unfortunately, this does not always help. The other day, again, one notorious "journalist" – a specialist in inventing sensations from scratch – repeated the same nonsense, adding from himself that, it turns out, the way to use our ions is to fire them (!) certainly some oligarch.

– What audience are your lectures intended for on the air of the TV channel "Culture"?

– I am counting primarily on high school students, undergraduates, graduate students, young scientists interested in biology and not yet burdened with traditional biological dogmas.

– Bioengineering is a fairly new field in the development of mankind. In Russia, unfortunately, the situation with science is not important. Do you have followers?

– If they had not been there, we would not have been able to gather a three-hundred team of project participants from scientists from Russia, the USA, Sweden, Germany.

– Your son Maxim is working with you on the Ion Skulachev project. How did this scientific duo develop, how are the functions distributed in research, how difficult or simple is it for you to work together?

– For me, working with Maxim is the greatest pleasure. The main thing is that I do not need to rush into the implementation of a grandiose plan. I am sure that there is someone to pass the baton to. It is especially valuable that Maxim is not alone in his desire to help bring our project to life. Next to him are his brothers Fedya, Kostya, Kesha and sister Tatiana. A separate role is played by Inna, my wife, who performs the most difficult experiments with our substances on artificial membranes. In general, to some extent, our risky venture is a family contract.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru 14.04.2010