What innovation can Ukrainian scientists give the world in the 21st century?

By Svetlana Sytina
The Ukrainian Times

In the 20th century a relative handful of inventors, tinkers and scientists – working in relative isolation, often with little funding – had given the world the automobile, radio, atomic power, moving pictures, airplanes, air-conditioning, the pill, antibiotics and the internet.

We are 15 years into the 21st century. Can you think of a single innovation that is equal to the airplane, the pill or antibiotics? Alas, all we can think of is WhatApp, Twitter and other apps that are more trouble than they are worth.

In recent years, however, work on the creation of nanoclinics, namely magnetically sensitive nanocomposites with multilevel hierarchical architecture and functions of biomedical nanorobots, has acquired priority significance in world science. This complex of functions includes recognition of specific microbiological objects in biological media, the delivery of drugs to targeted organs and cells, magnetic resonance diagnosis and cytotherapy, adsorption of cellular debris after the therapy and their removal from the body with the help of a magnetic field.

Scientists of the A.A. Chuiko Institute of Surface Chemistry under the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU) conducted thorough research for the purpose of substantiating the concept of chemical design of magnetically sensitive nanocomposites with multilevel hierarchical architecture and functions of biomedical nanorobots, as well as proved their functional potentialities by experiments.

Fortunately, (and here you see The Ukrainian Times sunny side coming through the clouds) one of the practical results of the above work is the development of a new magnetically sensitive pharmaceutical form, which will be applied in oncology. Experts of the R.E. Kavetsky Institute of Experimental Pathology, Oncology and Radiobiology under the NASU, together with their colleagues from the A.A. Chuiko Institute of Surface Chemistry, have evolved and patented a method for enhancing antitumor activity of the chemotherapeutic drug called cysplatin. The cytotoxic effect of the drug is heightened in vitro and in vivo owing to its combination with the nanoparticles of magnetic fluid that brings about a twofold increase in destruction of tumor cells without additional toxicoallergic side effects, compared with the free form of a drug. This method can be used now in clinical practice for treating malignant growths.

To implement the results of scientific research in practice and organize the mass production of a new pharmaceutical form, specialists of the A.A. Chuiko Institute of Surface Chemistry have elaborated a provisional flow chart in terms of the manufacture of the substance Magnetite-U and obtained patents on it.