Inventions by MSU Science Park residents: blood purification devices and injections against COVID-19 complications

Two MSU Science Park residents presented their cutting-edge products designed to prevent severe COVID-19 forms. The developers told mos.ru about the essence and the capabilities of the inventions.

“Today, MSU Science Park is a launchpad for effective commercialization of ideas generated at Moscow State University. Over the years, the Science Park has launched over 300 high-tech companies providing more than 10,000 jobs,” noted Alexei Fursin, Head of the Moscow Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovations.

Blood purification for sepsis

One of the innovations is sorption columns for extracorporeal blood purification. These innovative medical devices are used to treat sepsis (a systemic inflammatory response of the body to an infection), multiple-organ failure (a stress response which causes dysfunction in two or more organ systems) and severe forms of COVID-19.

“These life-threatening conditions stem from poorly regulated infection response of the body. Our immunity uses every tool to fight it trying to cope with the external pathogen. In such situations it does more harm than good. It damages the surface of blood vessels and disrupts the delivery of blood and oxygen to internal organs. Initially a local problem, it goes on to affect the whole body, at which point patients require intensive care. To help them, we use extracorporeal methods of blood purification,” explained Ivan Bessonov, technical director and co-founder of the manufacturing company.

This is how it works: with the help of a catheter and a pump the patient’s blood is delivered under low pressure along a sterile polymer tube to a disposable plastic cartridge — hemosorption column filled with a special biocompatible sorbent. When passing through the sorbent, the blood is cleared of any harmful substances (cytokine proteins that provoke the so-called cytokine storm, and bacterial toxins or lipopolysaccharides that trigger sepsis) and returns into the body.

Russian scientists were the first to prove that extracorporeal cytokine removal can help patients with life-threatening conditions. Back in the 1990s, Vadim Davankov's group proposed to solve this problem with the help of a sorbent called hypercrosslinked polystyrene, which is a new class of polymers.

“I was lucky to have learned from Vadim Davankov, worked with him and to helped realize his ideas in the 21st century. Our approach is based on giving new, previously inaccessible properties to hypercrosslinked polystyrene. We learned to create an area for selective binding of molecules on its surface, which previous-generation hypercrosslinked polystyrene cannot absorb,” Ivan Bessonov noted. “As a result, we’ve invented a sorbent that is able to deliberately remove two very different types of molecular targets: cytokines and lipopolysaccharides. We were the first in the world to introduce such sorbent to clinical practice.”

The effectiveness of the extracorporeal columns by the MSU Scientific Park resident during COVID-19 treatment was tested in 2021 as part of the pilot studies at Pirogov City Clinical Hospital No.1. The patients under study showed reduced multiple-organ failure and higher blood oxygen levels. They also had lower levels of proteins indicative of inflammation, such as interleukin-6, C-reactive protein and ferritin. The results were presented in Brussels at the International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine ISICEM 2021.

New sorption columns are now successfully used in largest state healthcare institutions of Moscow (including Pirogov City Clinical Hospital No.1, the Botkin Hospital, Sklifosovsky Research Institute for Emergency Medicine, City Clinical Hospital No. 68 named after V.P. Demikhov, the Voronovskoye Moscow Infectious Disease Clinical Center, Children's City Clinical Hospital No. 15 named after N.F. Filatov and the Emergency Children's Surgery and Traumatology Research Institute), as well as in healthcare institutions in other Russian regions and abroad (the product is exported to Latin America).

The company is currently having its medical devices certified in the European Union, developing hemosorption columns for children and conducting clinical studies.

“I want doctors to rely on world-class clinical studies when making a decision to prescribe our sorption columns,” Ivan Bessonov said. “And we’ve already come a long way in this respect. We are finishing recruitment for our cutting-edge study on abdominal sepsis. We will tell more about it soon. We’ve launched new studies on obstetric sepsis, community-acquired pneumonia, severe acute pancreatitis, coronavirus. I know for a fact that we have talented and ambitious doctors and that we can and we should conduct world-class research in Russia. We are working together on projects, the results of which will be properly perceived at the international level.”

Injection drug 

Another development is injections based on mitochondrial antioxidants, a new class of synthetic drugs. This innovation is intended to stop the development of coronavirus complications: for example, the drug prevents pulmonary edema caused by a cytokine storm, thus reducing the need for a ventilator.

“All cells in our body contain special structures — mitochondria. They serve as a power plant. Oxygen breaks down nutrients in them. What mitochondria need to do is preserve the produced energy. But mitochondria have a dark side as well. They use some oxygen to produce very toxic substances — free radicals, which contribute to the development of critical conditions, especially when the innate immune system is excessively activated — a systemic inflammatory response syndrome. This is what causes severe forms of COVID-19,” explained Maxim Skulachev, Ph.D, Biology, molecular biologist, CEO of the manufacturing company.

The active ingredient of the new drug — SkQ1 — mitochondrial antioxidant (a neutralizer of reactive oxygen species) can “put out the fire” caused by free radicals at the very start: it can penetrate cells and mitochondria through their membrane and accumulate in the area of toxic substances formation.

“We believe that in many cases (including severe COVID-19 forms) critical conditions and death are caused by activation of certain harmful mechanisms existent in the body. Oftentimes this is due to the better-die-than-make-a-mistake natural principle. Thus, bacteria have a special system to fight bacterial viruses — phage. The infected bacterium may initiate a self-destruct mode, thereby preventing the phage from growing. It seems that our body launches a similar mode in case of massive infection (in case of a bacterial infection it is a sepsis mechanism).  And we try to switch these mechanisms off through neutralization of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species,” Maxim Skulachev told mos.ru.

The development of injectable SkQ1 started in spring 2020. The animal studies showed that the drug sharply reduces the level of cytokine inflammation and prevents death. The next step is clinical trials with volunteers. The developers believe that the SkQ1-based drug may become instrumental for treating coronavirus and other virus infections. Today, mitochondrial antioxidant is already used as an active ingredient in a drug against glaucoma, cataract and other eye diseases. The drug is registered in Russia.