Cancer and "-omics"
The scientist told how the analysis of postgenomic data will help treat cancer
Andrey Andreev, Russian Newspaper
Despite the more applied economic nature of the third international forum "BioKirov-2015", many scientists take part in its work.According to Anton Buzdin, a leading researcher at the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Bioenergetics of the Kurchatov Institute, Doctor of Biological Sciences, events of this kind provide an opportunity to directly show promising developments to the authorities and business.
Anton Alexandrovich, you became one of the experts of the panel discussion "Biotechnology as the basis of personalized medicine: problems and solutions", what problems are you working on?Anton Buzdin: In the laboratory, I analyze large postgenomic data to find specific clinical solutions in medicine.
This is one of the most promising areas in biotechnology, which is already benefiting people. For example, within the framework of the institute, we are going to initiate a program that will help treat prostate cancer.
If we talk about cancer patients, the number of changes in their DNA can be in the tens of thousands. Some of them could play a role in the early stages of the development of diseases, and in the later stages they no longer play a role. This information will make it possible to understand what is going wrong in the cells, which is the target at which it is necessary to "shoot" during treatment in the case of a particular patient.How can the results of your research be applied in practice?
Anton Buzdin: A preservative of the patient's biological tissue is used, DNA is extracted from it, information is collected about all mutations, about which genes work wrong. As a result, we will know what the patient's reaction is to a certain drug. Having a large database of such studies, we will understand which patients with a certain disease will respond to the drug, and which will not. This is very important, given the high toxicity of drugs for the treatment of cancer patients. This will increase the effectiveness of treatment and reduce the number of side effects.
Most of the participants came to the BioKirov-2015 forum with a specific goal – to find partners. What caused your interest in the event?
Anton Buzdin: We want to create a public-private partnership program for big data analysis in biomedicine. Now there is a global competition between scientists for who will be the first in this field. The one who patents his methodology will be a big winner. In fact, this is a mega-technology of the future, which will give development to a huge direction at the junction of science and medicine.
Today, several research centers are engaged in such developments abroad, and scientists who have graduated from Russian universities often work there. It will be a shame if we are not the first. In this case, using these technologies, we will actually work for foreign companies, pharmaceutical giants, who will be able to set the price they want. We will all greatly overpay if we do not create the technology ourselves, although at the moment there are all prerequisites to be the first. It doesn't require a lot of money, and the Russian mathematical school is still extremely strong. At the forum, we want to convey this to the country's leadership.
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18.09.2015