Scientists to start tissue engineering in Kazakhstan

Nazarbayev University (NU) will focuses on tissue engineering, Tengrinews reports citing the General Director of the Center of Life Science at the NU Zhaksybai Zhumadilov. According to the report on tissue engineering that Dr. Zhumadilov made at the Synergy: Connecting science, business and society forum in Almaty, the center will focus on tissue engineering of children’s organs, as this niche of regenerative medicine is still unoccupied. A specialized laboratory for engineering children's tissues was established in the NU. However, the center is facing several difficulties that have nothing to do with medicine or research, but are of bureaucratic nature: Kazakhstan regal base regulating the new area is largely underdeveloped, so as infrastructure required for the research.“Any new science-intensive development requires a well-developed knowledge base and the authorities that approve, implement and monitor these new technologies," he said. He added that tissue engineering is a science-driven area of the medicine. That is why Kazakhstani scientists chose around 20 universities to partner with them in tissue engineering for children. Among the future partners of the NU’s Center of Life Science are the University of Pittsburgh, Duke University, Oxford and Cambridge, all of which are well advanced in biotechnologies. “The further development of this area requires great efforts and investments, but we must to develop it. Today we and in fact the whole world has a shortage of donor tissues and organs. That is why, we must work with stem cell technologies to create artificially engineered organs that will maintain human lives,” Dr. Zhumadilov emphasized. By Dmitriy Khegai