Young scientist on Belarus’ new technologies in drug development
The exhibition of young scientists’ achievements has brought together the most promising developments in the halls of the Belarusian State Medical University recently. Nadezhda Mikhailova, a senior lecturer at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, lectured on the safe disposal of drugs and the new properties of plants during the event.
“Our department conducts research in different directions, and the development of ways to dispose of medicines is among them,” Ms. Mikhailova said. “It is important that safe products are formed during the processing stage – so that they will not produce a harmful effect on the environment.” In addition, scientists are engaged in informing the public about how to properly dispose of medicines on their own. Special information systems have been developed for this purpose.
Another area of research is related to the medicinal plant raw materials. “Here, at the exhibition, we present extracts of Sosnowsky's hogweed. This plant is known to be invasive, but we have established that it has a pronounced antitumor activity. Research is currently underway to create new drugs for the treatment of cancer," Ms. Mikhailova added.
Dead nettle, a plant that looks promising for the treatment of diseases of the female reproductive system, is also being studied by Belarusians scientists.
The use of neural networks has become an important step in research as well, and the young scientist explained, “We have developed a neural network that predicts the toxicity of drug degradation products. It makes it possible to determine in advance which reagents can be used and which products will eventually be formed. This is a promising area.”
According to Ms. Mikhailova, artificial intelligence technologies help significantly reduce the volume of laboratory research and save resources. “Already at the modelling stage, optimal methods can be selected and then tested in a lab – thus speeding up research and making it more effective," she concluded.
