Waiting for miracles

Gene therapy can cure Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and cancer

Kirill Kaem, Vice President and Executive Director of the Cluster of Biological and Medical Technologies of the Skolkovo Foundation, spoke at the meeting of the Federation Council as part of the "Expert Time". His speech was devoted to the topic "Innovative trends in healthcare technologies".

According to the scientist, currently there is an accelerated development of biomedicine. "Thanks to the fundamental research that has taken place all over the world in the last 10-15 years, in particular in the field of molecular biology, there are now a lot of projects where these scientific studies are translated into technology."

Kai is sure that advances in genetics are seriously changing the approaches of doctors to the treatment of patients. This will lead to the fact that in a few years neurodegenerative diseases – such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases – will be excluded from the category of irreversible. It will be possible to postpone the effects of their effects on the body for a long time.

Kirill Kayem said that it is now possible to use the analysis of genomic and transcriptomic data. "Gene therapy is developing: drugs will soon be used that can affect the gene locally in a certain organ and thus fight the very basis of the disease."

The achievements of modern genetics will make it possible to effectively combat oncological diseases. In addition, thanks to a thorough study of the human genome map, it is possible to predict his potential diseases, the expert informed.

He also spoke about such technologies of the future as regenerative medicine, which assumes the possibility of bioprinting (recreating) organs, robotic surgery.

According to Kirill Kaem, in the future medicine will switch to a preventive principle of operation, in which the main task will not be to fight the disease that has already occurred, but to minimize the risks of possible diseases.

The expert believes that already at this stage, the laws adopted in Russia concerning the field of medicine should provide for the further development of high technologies.

Kirill Kayem also informed the members of the Federation Council that the Skolkovo Foundation is currently supporting 286 companies working in the field of biomedical technologies. Last year, the revenue of start-up companies of the Skolkovo Foundation for biomedicine amounted to about 4 billion rubles. For these purposes, in 2015, it was possible to attract more than one and a half billion rubles of private investment.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  21.04.2016