Vasily Lazarev

The basis of scientific activity of V.N. Lazarev is the development of innovative biotechnological drugs based on peptides and proteins of natural poisons and secrets of various organisms. Research conducted over the past 20 years under the guidance and direct participation of V.N. Lazarev, made a significant contribution to the study of the components of the poisons of insects, spiders, sea anemones, the secretion of the salivary glands of the medicinal leech as sources of new drugs of peptide and protein nature. V.N. Lazarev developed biotechnological methods for obtaining prototypes of such drugs in artificial genetic systems: E. coli, bacilli, yeast, human cells. One of the candidate drugs, which has a unique mechanism of thrombolysis, has successfully passed preclinical studies.
V.N. Lazarev is the founder of a new direction in genetic therapy, in which antimicrobial peptide genes are used as gene therapy agents for the treatment of infectious diseases caused by intracellular parasites.
Under the leadership of V.N. Lazarev, for the first time in the world, the complete nucleotide sequence of the genome of a species of medicinal leech (Hirudo medicinalis) was determined, transcriptome profiling of salivary gland cells was carried out, deep proteomic and peptidomic analyzes of the secretion of leeches of these species, as well as metagenomic analysis were performed. For the first time, a number of new, previously undescribed proteins and peptides with thrombolytic, anticoagulant, and antimicrobial properties have been discovered.
Works by V.N. Lazareva demonstrated the effectiveness of "omics" (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics) technologies for the search for new compounds of peptide and protein nature, on the basis of which biotechnological synthesis can be used to create innovative drugs for the treatment of a wide range of socially significant diseases.

1. Grafskaia E, Pavlova E, Babenko VV, Latsis I, Malakhova M, Lavrenova V, Bashkirov P, Belousov D, Klinov D, Lazarev V. The Hirudo Medicinalis Microbiome Is a Source of New Antimicrobial Peptides. Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Sep 27;21(19):7141. doi: 10.3390/ijms21197141. PMID: 32992666; PMCID: PMC7582656.

2. Babenko VV, Podgorny OV, Manuvera VA, Kasianov AS, Manolov AI, Grafskaia EN, Shirokov DA, Kurdyumov AS, Vinogradov DV, Nikitina AS, Kovalchuk SI, Anikanov NA, Butenko IO, Pobeguts OV, Matyushkina DS, Rakitina DV, Kostryukova ES, Zgoda VG, Baskova IP, Trukhan VM, Gelfand MS, Govorun VM, Schiöth HB, Lazarev VN. Draft genome sequences of Hirudo medicinalis and salivary transcriptome of three closely related medicinal leeches. BMC Genomics. 2020 Apr 29;21(1):331. doi: 10.1186/s12864-020-6748-0. Erratum in: BMC Genomics. 2020 Jul 22;21(1):503. PMID: 32349672; PMCID: PMC7191736.

3. Podgorny OV, Polina NF, Lazarev VN. Isolation and Propagation of Single Inclusion-Derived Chlamydia Using Laser Microdissection. Methods Mol Biol. 2019;2042:137-150. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-9694-0_10. PMID: 31385274.

4. Baskova IP, Kalabushev SN, Akhaev DN, Bobrovsky PA, Manuvera VA, Lazarev VN. Role of isopeptidolysis in the process of thrombolysis. Thromb Res. 2018 May;165:18-23. doi: 10.1016/j.thromres.2018.03.007. Epub 2018 Mar 12. PMID: 29549778.

5. Babenko VV, Mikov AN, Manuvera VA, Anikanov NA, Kovalchuk SI, Andreev YA, Logashina YA, Kornilov DA, Manolov AI, Sanamyan NP, Sanamyan KE, Kostryukova ES, Kozlov SA, Grishin EV, Govorun VM, Lazarev VN. Identification of unusual peptides with new Cys frameworks in the venom of the cold-water sea anemone Cnidopus japonicus. Sci Rep. 2017 Nov 6;7(1):14534. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-14961-1. PMID: 29109403; PMCID: PMC5673964.

6. Bobrovsky P, Manuvera V, Polina N, Podgorny O, Prusakov K, Govorun V, Lazarev V. Recombinant Human Peptidoglycan Recognition Proteins Reveal Antichlamydial Activity. Infect Immun. 2016 Jun 23;84(7):2124-2130. doi: 10.1128/IAI.01495-15. PMID: 27160295; PMCID: PMC4936355.

7. Manuvera VA, Kurdyumov AS, Filonova KA, Lazarev VN. Generation of recombinant destabilase-lysozyme from medicinal leeches in three different expression systems. Protein Expr Purif. 2015 Dec;116:50-8. doi: 10.1016/j.pep.2015.08.012. Epub 2015 Aug 12. PMID: 26277552.