Vsevolod A. Tkachuk

Dear colleagues, dear friends!

I am pleased to welcome you at the IV National Congress on Regenerative Medicine, which takes place in Russia every two years and for the second time will be held at the Lomonosov Moscow State University.
Regenerative medicine is a new field which appeared at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, but now it is beginning to enter medical practice with hundreds of clinical studies going on around the world. Many of them convincingly demonstrated the unique possibilities of gene, cell therapy and tissue engineering methods, which, in number of cases, made possible to cure serious hereditary and acquired diseases.
New knowledge about the molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie the regenerative processes open up the possibility of managing our own regenerative resources by influencing the processes of renewing the cellular composition of organs and tissues and controlling the processes of differentiation of stem cells quiescent in niches, transdifferentiation of somatic cells, migration and proliferation. The proven effective approach for this is to use stem cell secretome. The repertoire of regenerative medicine methods also includes gene therapy, both substitutional and genome editing. For cases of severe tissue defects or even organ loss regenerative medicine could offer methods and approaches for tissue engineering and technologies for creating artificial but living tissue structures and organs.
Federal Law No. 180-ФЗ “On Biomedical Cellular Products”, which entered into force in 2017, is currently provided with the regulatory framework necessary for practical application. The professional network of researchers and developers has a scientific and technical foundation in the field of creating products for regenerative medicine, so the introduction of regenerative medicine methods into practice is now a matter of time and dialogue between all interested parties - scientists, healthcare and production organizers, industry and professional medical associations.
The Congress is not only a scientific forum where leading scientists will be able to share their results, but also an important event forming a new professional community, which is now united under the auspices of the “Society of Regenerative Medicine”. We must not forget about the educational mission of the Congress, which will be held within the verge of the first University of the country - MSU. Traditionally, students, graduate students, residents and young specialists, whose scientific and professional level and professional future depend on knowledge in the field of fundamental principles of regenerative medicine and practical experience that is constantly accumulating in our country and in the world, traditionally take part in this scientific event.

We hope that the Congress will reach a new level in 2019, and along with it important steps will be taken by a young, but very high-tech and promising field - regenerative medicine! I wish good luck to all participants in the Congress!

Congress President
President of the National Society of Regenerative Medicine
RAS academician Vsevolod A. Tkachuk