Zhukova Galina, DB

Galina V. Zhukova, Doctor of Biological Sciences, works in the National Medical Research Center of Oncology (formerly the Rostov Research Institute for Oncology). The main area of her scientific interests is related to the study of systemic and local mechanisms of adaptation and the antitumor body resistance, as well as the development of methods for suppressing tumor growth using non-toxic factors of natural origin (primarily, weak electromagnetic radiation of EHF- and microwave bands and magnetite nanoparticles). From 2003 to 2019 she successively held the positions of leading researcher, head of the laboratory and chief researcher of the Rostov Research Institute for Oncology. She is author and coauthor of 175 scientific publications, included 10 invention patent.

Born on December 9, 1957 in Rostov-on-Don. In 1975, she graduated from secondary school with a gold medal, and also, at the same time, from the correspondence mathematical school at Moscow State University (with honors). In 1980 she graduated with honors from the Biological Department of the Faculty of Biology and Soil of the Rostov State University and was admitted to the Rostov Research Institute for Oncology. Here she worked in laboratories headed by Lyubov Khaimovna Garkavi and Elena Borisovna Kvakina, the authors of the discovery of general non-specific anti-stress adaptational body reactions (1975), who developed a new therapeutic technology - activation therapy.

In 1994 she successfully conducted his PhD Thesis Defense in physiology, dedicated to the experimental study of bioaminergic systems of the body under physiological conditions and during tumor growth. The results obtained made it possible to expand the understanding of the neurohumoral mechanisms of the development of antistress adaptational reactions in relation to the activity of catecholaminergic, serotonergic and histaminergic processes, and to reveal a new compensatory adaptation mechanism, which consists in the activation of the epiphyseal-adrenal system during development of tension in antistress adaptational reactions. It was also shown that "bioaminergic pattern" characterized of each of the antistress reactions under physiological conditions was destroyed during tumor growth, and then may be partial restored under the antitumor effect of activation therapy factors.

While implementing the Doctoral Dissertation (2006) and in further studies of weak electromagnetic radiations, Galina V. Zhukova demonstrated that the antitumor effect of these factors may be elevated with bioeffective modulation modes, the complex use of radiation of various ranges, as well as with combination of EHF radiation and pulsed electric fields used in activation therapy regimes. At the same time, the possibility of partial and complete regression of transplanted rat tumors only under the action of weak EHF and microwave radiations was shown firstly, as well as signs of initiation of tumor-specific immune responses under the influence of modulated millimeter radiation, leading to regression of large tumors, were firstly noted.

Among the scientific achievements of G.V. Zhukova, a special place is occupied by the results of studying the self-dependent antitumor effects of magnetite nanoparticles injected into the peritumoral zone. These studies were initiated by Garkavi L.Kh. with the technical assistance of RosNOU. In experimants led by G. V. Zhukova, regression of already formed and actively growing transplanted tumors of experimental animals only under the influence of magnetite NPs was firstly obtained. This result was reported in 2010 at the International Cancer Congress in Kyiv. Later antitumor effects of varying degrees of severity were also noted in linear mice. The doses of magnetite nanoparticles used in the experiments did not allow us to associate the noted effects with the direct toxic effect of these particles on tumor growth. The dynamics of complete regression of Pliss lymphosarcoma of very large sizes (up to 30 cm3) under the influence of magnetite nanoparticles and known information about the role of the ratio of the activity of the iron transport proteins ferritin and ferroportin in the polarization of macrophages allowed G.V. Zhukova to make an assumption about the mechanism of the antitumor effect of such nanoparticles (2015). It may be related with the change in the polarization of tumor-associated macrophages (M2 → M1) upon magnetite nanoparticles administration, the subsequent massive deployment of the processes of presentation of tumor antigens and then tumor-specific killing of malignant cells by stimulation of apoptosis.

Original researches led by Zhukova G.V. may be observed as an experimental justification for the need to develop of fundamentally new approaches to highly effective and non-toxic antitumor treatment associated with the activation of natural mechanisms of antitumor resistance and with cancellation of mechanisms for tumor avoiding of immune control, not accompanied by a toxic effect on the body of cancer patients.