Department of Pharmacology of the Military Medical Academy in the 21st century: New achievements based on historical traditions (2000–2023)

Abstract

In the early 2000s at the Department of Pharmacology, active research was launched into the mechanisms of hypoxia, the creation of antihypoxic drugs, the study of means and technologies for increasing performance, and drugs with immunomodulatory and reparative effects. The mechanisms of hypoxia and life support in extreme conditions have been a traditional area of scientific research of the department. Started back in the 1960s under the leadership of V.M. Vinogradov, this direction gained development and scientific recognition by the end of the 1990s. During this period, new antihypoxants of direct and indirect action were created and thoroughly studied - gutimin, bemithyl, amtizol, trimetazidine and others. Almost all employees of the department and numerous applicants for academic degrees from among both academic and non-academic employees participated in the research.
 Using approaches and concepts of molecular physiology and pharmacology, very interesting and promising results for implementation were obtained. An unconditional success in scientific research in this area has been the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of action of aminothiol-type antihypoxants, which consist in optimizing energy production and energy consumption in cells, the ability of compounds to reduce membrane damage due to lipid peroxidation and clearly activate antioxidant systems. The second direction was the study of the molecular mechanisms of sustainable adaptation to various factors, begun by prof. A.V. Smirnov. Thus, patterns of long-term adaptation were established in the process of adapting the body to high-altitude hypoxia, overheating, and heavy repeated loads. The contribution of individual organs to the development of these adaptive phenomena was quantitatively determined. In the experiment, effective schemes for emergency adaptation were developed using pulse modes of training influences against the background of the use of pharmacological adaptogens. A significantly more pronounced adaptogenic activity has been established for drugs such as thiobenzimidazole (bemythyl) and trecrezan in comparison with known adaptogens - dibazole, eleutherococcus, etc. Based on experimental data, similar schemes for pharmacologically enhanced and accelerated emergency adaptation have been developed and tested on healthy volunteers, in particular to sharp changes in climatic conditions (overheating, hypothermia, hypoxia), as well as metabolic cocktails based on the antihypoxant bemityl (B-100, B-200 and B-300). These schemes and pharmacological interventions make it possible in just a few days to achieve a noticeable adaptation of the body to the action of certain climatic factors. The third direction was the creation and study of new pharmacological agents for correcting the effects of hypoxia, toxic pulmonary edema, liver and immune system damage based on condensed indole systems and their products transformations. As it turned out, indole derivatives (about 60 compounds have been synthesized and studied) are low toxic, have antihypoxic, antiedema, hepatoprotective, actoprotective and antiviral activities.