Serbian on the road to stop "Parkinson's"

Sunday, July 22, 2018
intensely search for drugs for serious and incurable diseases, the discovery of our young scientist Dr. Vukasin Jovanović (29 years) from Prizren, has attracted attention the global professional audience! His discovery of the new role of Bmp5 and Bmp7 in the development of dopaminergic neurons will contribute significantly to the treatment of Parkinson's disease by stem cells. The news of this discovery was recently published on the front page of the prestigious journal Journal of Neuroscience published by the World Society for Neuroscience

and funded by the Israel Scientific Foundation. University of Ben Gurion University in Israel, in the laboratory of Professor Klod Brodsky. Thanks to her, she had the opportunity to improve at the US National Institute of Health in Maryland, Laboratory of Preclinical Studies of Dr. Ilijase Singec in Stem Cells, which is the largest research center in the world for this type of research

. Patients with Parkinson's disease, chronic diseases of the nervous system, and the cause is unknown and there is currently no medicine – says Jovan Jovanovic for " News ". – It disrupts the brain system responsible for movement and coordination, progresses over time and the symptoms deteriorate. It causes the death of vital cells of the brain, and mainly affects the neurons that produce dopamine, a substance necessary for brain work that controls movement and coordination. As the disease progresses, the amount of dopamine in the brain decreases, leaving the patient completely unchecked.

As our collaborator recently said, the idea of ​​replacing these dying cells producing dopamine has attracted the attention of scientists. . And the importance of his study is to discover new proteins by which neurons produced from stem cells could be used to treat Parkinson's disease by transplantation.

– Scientists can today translate any cell of an adult into stem cells. . – By activating certain genes, cells, such as those in the skin or blood, become stem cells. During my PhD in Israel, using genetically modified mice, I discovered a new role of Bmp5 and Bmp7 specific proteins in the embryonic development of these neurons. Currently, in the American laboratory, in collaboration with Austrian and American scientists, we are trying to translate stem cells into different types of human cells, such as the brain, liver, pancreas, cardiac muscle cells … We hope to be able to use these cells for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases

PHYSICIANS IN ISRAEL
Doctor in Physiotherapy, Dr. Jovanovic in Belgrade, in the direction of medical biochemistry in 2012. After an internship at the KCS Laboratory of Medical Biochemistry he was unable to find a job in our country and in October 2013 he joined Klod Brodsky's laboratory in Israel. There he received his Ph.D. in the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology at the Faculty of Medicine of Ben Gurion University

RETURN HOME
I hope that my work will create the conditions necessary to continue my career in Serbia. – Stem cell studies can only be carried out in a system that allows serious funding of such scientific projects. The funding system of science in Serbia is not currently able to launch such projects, not because of money, but because of a negative selection due to poor criteria of allocation of money. Such a situation leads to a paradox – also financed by extraordinary projects that are totally irrelevant from a scientific point of view. The state is trying to stimulate the return of the experts to Serbia, but because of poor criteria, it comes down mainly to those who would certainly come back.

Authors B. Caranovic, J. Matijević

Izvor Večernje Novosti, July 22, 2018.