May 27–29, 2021: 4th Saint Petersburg Medical Innovation Forum

The 4th Saint Petersburg Medical Innovation Forum was held as part of the Programme of the World-Class Research Centre for Personalized Medicine.

The Minister of Health of the Russian Federation Mikhail Murashko delivered the welcome address at the opening ceremony highlighting the significant success achieved by Russian scientists in the development of effective drugs and medical devices in the shortest possible time during the pandemic and emphasizing that one of the most effective and safest vaccines in the world was developed in Russia. According to the minister, this breakthrough became possible thanks to proven technological platforms for a prompt response to new infections.

“Support for R&D, the development of genetic technologies and academic leadership should become our focus for the coming years. That is why it is important for us to motivate students and residents for research. Medical science should be aimed at obtaining results that are relevant in practice and scientific developments should not be kept on the shelf. The results of research must be translated into specific clinical and organizational decisions that will improve the efficiency of medical care,” said Mikhail Murashko.

Director General of Almazov Centre, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Evgeny Shlyakhto sincerely thanked the minister for his support and stressed that 2020 was one of the most difficult years for medicine due to the coronavirus pandemic. The specialists had to quickly learn and work with a huge amount of data, and only innovative technologies made it possible to solve the challenges. As a result, a COVID-19 vaccine was developed in record time and clinics were reassigned to treat coronavirus patients. According to the academician, the main task of the Forum is to continue the introduction of new developments in other areas of medicine at the same pace.

At the opening ceremony of the Forum, Deputy Director of the Department of Science and Technology Policy of the Ministry of Education and Science Kirill Borisov addressed the participants and expressed confidence that the active actions of specialists, the exchange of scientific experience and knowledge, participation in various events of the Forum will lead to the emergence of new bright ideas, fresh views and interesting scientific solutions.

Director General of the Russian Science Foundation Alexander Khlunov welcomed the attendees in his video message to the Forum. He highlighted the uniqueness of the event and expressed hope that new practices and solutions will emerge in medicine in the near future.

Chairman of the RAS Medical Science Department, a member of the Board of Trustees of Almazov Centre Vladimir Starodubov joined the opening ceremony online.

“A special feature of this Forum is its diversity, because specialists from almost all areas of health care have the opportunity to speak and not only present their results but also look into the future,” emphasized Vladimir Starodubov.

Vladimir Gaidei, Deputy Chairman of the St. Petersburg Committee for Science and Higher Education also expressed his support and gratitude to the participants at the opening ceremony.

Vice Governor of St. Petersburg Oleg Ergashev, who is in charge of social and healthcare development, also sent his greetings to the Forum. Evgeny Shlyakhto sincerely thanked the City Government and Alexander Beglov personally for supporting the initiatives of Almazov Centre.

The Forum brought together about 2,000 participants: Russian and world experts from various medical and related fields. During three days, the participants discussed the issues of improving cardiology care, topical issues of endocrinology and experimental medicine, drug therapy for cardiovascular disease, challenging issues of oncohematology, neurology and neurosurgery, new medical technologies and medical education innovations, traditional and innovative teaching technologies for medical imaging, modern technologies for women’s health and principles of interdisciplinary management of patients with rare diseases.

The Forum featured lectures, plenary sessions, scientific symposia, workshops, clinical case discussions. The participants discussed the issues of establishing a biomedical R&D ecosystem that will develop and implement diagnostic and treatment technologies based on personalized medicine, including the assessment of genetic risks, methods of pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics, disease biomodelling, genome modification and the creation of drugs for gene therapy and biomedical cell products with the use of genome editing technologies to improve the quality of treatment and reduce mortality in various cardiovascular diseases, metabolic comorbidities, hematological malignancies and certain types of solid tumors, some infectious diseases, as well as in genetic diseases, including rare and understudied ones.

This year’s sessions featured more than 20 key-note lectures and invited lectures by leading world experts in all areas of personalized medicine including epidemiological genetics, rare diseases, microbiota research, oncology, nervous system pathology, cardiovascular diseases, theranostics and more.

Among the keynote speakers were Prof. Rüdiger Hehlmann, Founder and Chair of the ELN Foundation (Germany), Alberico L. Catapano, Professor of Pharmacology, University of Milan (Italy), Giuseppe Faggian, Professor and Chief of Cardiac Surgery, University of Verona (Italy), Roberto Ferrari, Emeritus Professor, University of Ferrara (Italy) and other prominent scientists.

The 4th Saint Petersburg Medical Innovation Forum was included in the list of 2021 events of the Russian Ministry of Health.

29.05.2021