Bulgaria undertakes an ambitious cancer and rare diseases research project

Bulgaria has a chance to develop science with the world's greats. The project for the construction of a biomedical research centre of the Institute of Molecular Biology received the high evaluation of the French Institute for Cancer Research and the Max Planck Institute, Germany. They are partners of the Bulgarians, which is a guarantee that the project is reliable.

Cancer research and research into rare genetic diseases, although at the centre of world scientific thought, need new approaches and technologies to speed up the discovery of effective therapies. And in this race, Bulgarian scientists clearly have something to offer.

Dorothy Nickel - Institut Curie, Paris: "We have had occasion to work on various projects with scientists, for example from the Centre for Advanced Microscopy, and we are aware of the level. So we are happy to work together in the future."

At the Centre for Advanced Microscopy they really succeed with projects that are not everyone's cup of tea. Right now, they are using a fluorescence colfocal microscope to observe in real time the molecular mechanisms of action of an anticancer drug in living cells.

Alexander Atemin - PhD student, Institute of Molecular Biology, BAS: "At the moment what we can see is that the cells are treated, respectively we observe them in real time and what I can tell you is that the protein is not affected by this drug."

Observing in real time what happens in a living cell is a complex experiment that requires its own design, judgement about which proteins to track and how to label them.

Alexander Atemin - PhD student, Institute of Molecular Biology, BAS: "You have to get a certain structure that we observe whether it is visible or not. At the moment, this structure is not visible and therefore the drug has either stopped working or is at too low a dose."

To see this, high technology helps, but scientists are the more important asset. And the Curie Institute is well aware of this.

Dorothy Nickel - Institut Curie, Paris: "There are many famous Bulgarian scientists working on this project. Moreover, it will attract many other Bulgarian scientists, big names in the field to come back to Bulgaria."

With the necessary technology, the scientists intend to make a significant intervention in rare disease research, an area in which science cannot yet boast a major breakthrough.