The 9th VESTIFINANCE Forum was held on 21–22 June in Moscow extending the series of speeches by prominent Russian experts on the ‘Next 20 Years’. This time the theme of the event was new technology and promising areas of medicine and healthcare.
The Forum was organized by the Roscongress Foundation, VESTIFINANCE, and TV channel Doctor.
The Forum brought together doctors from leading Russian clinics, researchers, experts from research laboratories, university students, entrepreneurs and businessmen, and media representatives. The main speakers were: Maxim Skulachev, biologist, CEO of Mitotech; Leonid Brizhan, Senior Traumatologist at Burdenko Main Military Clinical Hospital; Simon Matskeplishvili, Deputy Director for Science and Research, University Clinic of the Lomonosov Moscow State University; Sergey Morozov, CEO, Research and Practice Centre of Medical Radiology; Andrey Perfilyev, Co-Founder, Medical Director of Atlas Biomed Group; Nikolay Durmanov, Professor, Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO. The participants shared their vision on whether putting together innovative technology and medicine would bring results in the shortest term.
Maxim Skulachev stared the main Programme. He delivered a speech on which scientific discoveries, facts, and hypotheses provided an optimistic view of prospects of fighting ageing, and what developments in this area were being clinically tested. The expert noted that creating an anti-ageing medication had turned from a theoretical to a purely technological issue. According to Skulachev, anti-ageing medication might appear by 2035 and it would be widely used.
Leonid Brizhan shared his view on the future of technology in medicine. He pointed out several trends that would shape this area in forthcoming years. Those are robot-assisted surgery, biodegradable shape memory materials, 3D printing of organs, manufacturing biological tissues, genetic engineering, development of new targeted-therapy medications and exo prostheses.
Simon Matskeplishvili emphasised that «digital and mobile technologies have changed our lives so much that we reasonably expect them to significantly change healthcare. Technology and apps including cloud computing, social networks and big data analysis will become the basis for global modernisation of healthcare.»
According to Sergey Morozov, digitalization is everywhere. As for the current status of digital technology in Russian medicine, Unified Digital Contour, telehealth and artificial intelligence are rapidly developing. At the same time, the expert noted that it would be impossible for AI to reach the performance level of a human doctor and replace doctors.
Andrey Perfilyev spoke about predictive medicine and about the health ecosystem of the future. According to the speaker, «people today are ready to pay out of pocket for genome sequencing to learn more about themselves, to understand new capabilities of their bodies. And this is becoming a trend.»
Nikolay Durmanov gave a lecture on
new genetic technology, and gene editing in particular, that holds great
potential for mankind. However, they are so advanced today, that society cannot
keep up to date and adapt to them. The expert provided an analysis of advantages
and disadvantages of progress in genetics and of how to be safe from this
progress at the meeting with participants of the 9th VESTIFINANCE
Forum. «We can redesign humans, we can redesign nature, our technical skills
are far ahead of our understanding of ethical, economic, and political aspects.
No one speaks of it, only geneticists quietly discuss it as it is. And we want
everyone to talk about it, because it’s a global issue,» noted Nikolay
Durmanov.
The Forum also featured an
exhibition of medical innovation. Russian companies presented their advanced
developments that the visitors could test on themselves.
Any visitor could participate in a
discussion with an expert and ask any questions. «It is important for us to give
many entrepreneurs, managers, students, and simply interested individuals as
possible a chance to get information on economics or science straight from the
horse’s mouth, from people who are currently shaping the future of our
country,» said Alexey Bobrovsky, General Producer and Moderator of the
VESTIFINANCE Forum, on the main goal of the project.
