Cellular technologies: present and future
Freedom is in a cage
Nina Andreeva-Ross, "IA MANGAZEYA"
Photo of the author
"The future of medicine belongs to cellular technologies" – you hear this phrase more and more often. Is everything really going to the point that cellular technologies will replace the pill in the treatment technique? We are talking about this with the head of the Department of Histology, Cytology and Embryology of the First St. Petersburg State Medical University. academician I. P. Pavlov by Professor Vladimir BYKOV.
– Vladimir Lazarevich, what impact does fundamental research – in biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics – have on the development of modern methods of treatment?
– The most direct: in recent years, the cells and tissues of the body have been actively studied precisely as a means of therapeutic technologies. Tissue and cellular engineering has achieved great success: it is possible to create artificial tissues and organs for their subsequent transplantation into the body. For example, burns or trophic ulcers require covering a large surface of the body. A piece of skin of one square centimeter is taken from the patient, stem cells are isolated (or rather, their daughter cells dividing at a high rate), a culture of these cells is sown in sterile conditions, growth factors are added and a layer of skin with an area of half a meter by half a meter is grown in just two weeks! And the grown one has all the signs of the patient's own skin, so it will not be rejected!
They learned how to grow the mucous membrane of the oral cavity, replace tissues – bone, cartilage and muscle, create heart valves, blood vessels, the cornea of the eye, restore the pulp of the tooth. Significant progress in the cultivation of the trachea, bronchi, esophagus, salivary glands. The possibility of recreating even large organs – liver, kidneys, lungs - is being studied.
– The study of human body cells did not begin yesterday...
– The end of the XIX – beginning of the XX century abounded with discoveries that laid the foundations of modern ideas about the structure and functions of cells and tissues. And the work of scientists was appreciated: one of the first Nobel Prizes was awarded in 1906 for research in the field of histology. The winners were Italian Camillo Golgi and Spaniard Santiago Ramon y Cajal.
And in 1908, the Nobel Prize winner was the Russian immunologist, biologist Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, who answered the main question of immunology: how the body manages to defeat pathogenic microbes. Mechnikov was the first to reveal the ability of special cells of the body (which he called phagocytes, which in Greek means "absorbing cells") to capture and destroy foreign particles, microbes. Unfortunately, until now Mechnikov is the only one of our compatriots who has become a laureate of this prestigious award in the field of physiology and medicine.
In 1935, the winner was the German embryologist Hans Spemann, whose discoveries shed light on the problem of regeneration – the ability of living organisms to restore damaged tissues, and sometimes lost organs. Alas, human capabilities in this regard are modest, whereas, for example, lizards grow new tails, and newts and salamanders even have new limbs.
In the second half of the twentieth century, new paths opened up into the microcosm of cells and tissues, but we see unprecedented interest in the XXI century. Almost every year discoveries in this field are crowned with a Nobel Prize.
– So the awards are a reflection of interest in a certain field of science in a specific period of time?
"That's right. In the 2000s, discoveries follow literally one after another.
2001 – Prize for the discovery of cell cycle regulators. The body of an adult consists of about one hundred trillion cells, which were formed as a result of division from a single-celled embryo that arose during fertilization of an egg by a sperm. Cells in the tissues of the body are constantly dividing, replacing the dying ones. And so the American Hartwell and the British Hunt and Ners found that cells preparing for division undergo numerous "checkpoints" in which their condition is determined – are they healthy, are they ready to enter the next phase? If the mechanism of regulation of the cell cycle is disrupted, this can lead to uncontrolled cell growth, which is observed in cancerous tumors. But by activating the mechanisms of regulation, it is possible to stop such growth. This discovery lays the foundations for the development of new cancer treatments.
In 2007, for the first time in history, a work on stem cells received the Nobel Prize. The awardees are the American M. Capecchi, the Anglo-American geneticist O. Smithis and the Englishman M. Evans. It is sad that the Russian theorist of this field, the founder of the theory of stem cells, histologist Alexander Alexandrovich Maksimov, remained without a reward. But the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously.
2010: the prize was awarded to the Briton Robert Edwards for the development of the method of in vitro fertilization. The IVF method, in addition to its enormous practical significance, revealed what used to be a "secret behind seven seals" – information about the earliest stages of human embryonic development.
In 2011, a fantastic achievement was noted: in our time, we managed to open a new cell system! American B. Boitler, J. Offman from Luxembourg and Canadian R. Steinman established the leading role of the so-called dendritic cells in protecting the body from microbes and tumors. Dendritic recognize tumor cells changed as a result of mutation and are able to organize an "army" of lymphocytes to fight them. If this system worked perfectly, the tumors would have no chance. However, in many cases, the development of cancer is combined with inhibition, inhibition of the activity of dendritic cells. That is why their activation is one of the strategies for fighting tumors.
In 2012, the winners were John Gurdon from the UK and Shinya Yamanaka from Japan, who discovered the possibilities of reprogramming mature cells so that they could create any tissue. Enormous opportunities are opening up for clinical practice, because now it is not necessary to use human embryos to obtain pluripotent cells. It is enough to take a patient's cell, reprogram it, that is, make it a stem cell, and grow the necessary tissues or even an entire organ from the transformed stem cell in a bioreactor.
Does the patient have diabetes? Please, it is possible to grow cells that will produce insulin and inject them into the patient's body. You can even grow a three-dimensional organ. All this is still being developed experimentally, but the implementation is not far off.
2013: the prize was awarded to Americans R. Shekman, D. Rotman and German-American scientist T. Sudhofu – they revealed the mechanism by which cells exchange signals and deliver the most important molecules (hormones, enzymes) to a certain part of the cell or beyond – exactly where they are needed, and at the exact time. To do this, cells use "vesicles" – microscopic bubbles that serve as a vehicle. The discovery is very important for the treatment of many diseases of the nervous, immune and endocrine systems – for example, type II diabetes.
Finally, 2014. American John O'Keefe and Norwegian spouses Moser received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of special "place cells" in the brain, which are responsible for the innate sense of orientation of a person in space, a kind of GPS, where one brain structure (entorhinal cortex) is a processor, and the other (hippocampus) is a monitor, which displays ready–made memory cards. These "place cells" are very often affected in Alzheimer's disease, and the discovery gives hope for a breakthrough in treatment.
– You have told about the avalanche of discoveries, but many experts complain: fundamental science in our higher school is in the position of an unloved stepdaughter – class hours are reduced, lectures are minimized...
– Yes, when the Third Federal state Educational Standard for Medical students was introduced a few years ago, the number of hours in many fundamental disciplines was actually reduced - for the first time in many decades – by a third, calling it "optimization". In the universities of the pre-revolutionary Russian Empire, much more time was allocated to study the course of the same histology than now, and this, mind you, with incomparable amounts of information!
The most perplexing thing is that all these reductions in natural science courses at Russian universities are taking place at a time when the scientific world is absorbed in research that holds the future of medicine – tissue engineering, stem cells, cell technologies. But there is hope that the Third Federal Educational Standard, about which I have not heard a single positive feedback from specialists, will be replaced. Fundamental sciences are the basis, the foundation, and only by fully mastering them, you can become a highly qualified thinking doctor.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru09.06.2015