History of Clinical Hospital «NEUROVITA»

The main technologies of our Hospital date back to 1991 when according to the order of the Head of the Military Medical Directorate of the Ministry of Defense a small interdisciplinary team of molecular biologists, geneticists, biophysicists, biochemists and other specialists from different Ministries and institutions under the guidance of Andrey Bryukhovetskiy, the Medical Service Colonel was established. The goal of the group was to study and develop novel methods of treatment for a complicated contingent of the patients with acute and chronic injuries of the central nervous system and locomotor system in battle trauma using human stem cells, bioengineering and tissue engineering of the neural tissue. Further, Dmitriyeva TB, the Minister of Healthcare of Russia as agreed with Prof. Shumakov VI, the member of the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) and the Head of the Research Institute of Transplantology and Artificial Organs, organized the Group of High Medical Technologies in the Institute and expanded the range of eligible patients. At different times the Group was guided by Shumakov VI, the transplantologist, the member of the RAS, Dmitrieva TB, the psychiatrist, the member of the RAS, Yaryghin VN, the neurobiologists, the member of the RAS, Chekonin VP and Sukhikh GT, the immunologists and the members of the RAS, as well as Davydov MI, the oncologist, the member of the RAS. The specialists of the Group of High Medical Technologies conducted one of the first research of the stem cells (SCs) in the animal models of various diseases on the basis of the Institute and Patrice Lumumba University of People Friendship and the results appeared promising.

Thanks to the support and involvement of Dmitrieva TB, the Minister of Healthcare, and Shumakov VI, the head transplantologist of the country, the clinical trials in humans were approved by the Scientific Board of the Research Institute and in 1996 the first surgical neurotransplantation of the SC was performed. Our research team was the first in the world to transplant SCs intrathecally (into the spinal canal) and intraventricularly in combat injury of the brain. We performed over 100 surgeries in tissue engineering of the spinal cord in humans and over 40 000 infusions of the cell products into the spinal canal of the patients with neural trauma.