Astromelanin
July, 2000. I was staying in Los Angeles waiting for a work permit. (Apparently it was a wrong thing to do — as it turned out later, a lawyer by the name of S.W. Blaylock had "inadvertently" failed to get my visa extended. As a result, I would be deported from the USA and prohibited from entering the country for at least five years. Incidentally, the whole thing cost me $10,000. To digress for a moment, quite a number of people I have met during my extensive travels told me that one of the main reasons for keeping effective anticancer drugs from coming onto the market is overpopulation. "There are too many people in the world as it is", they would say, to which I always answered that I don't know about people in general, but I know for sure there are too many lawyers. Way too many.)
So there I was, lazing around in LA, having been warned by one of those, of which there are too many, that I couldn't leave the USA until my papers were ready. My lawyer wanted me to overstay so I won't be able to come back and start the case against him and try to get my 10 grand back.
Then one day the roof fell in when I got a message from my mother in Moscow. She was diagnosed with cancer. First stage of breast cancer.
The minute I heard the news I realized it meant a new starting point in my life. The shock was so severe that I couldn't even cry. I only remember urging her forcefully not to undergo surgery in Moscow (she was supposed to have an operation three days later) and promising I would get everything sorted out.
But what could I possibly do?
There was no hope for her to obtain a visa to the USA. Where should I take her then?
How much would it cost and was there any certainty that radiation treatment abroad would produce better results? What was the death rate among women with breast cancer in other countries? I didn't feel like I wanted to know the answer to this last question, even for the sake of statistics.
Then I remembered I had to stay in the USA unless I wanted the work permit plan to fall through. So what the hell, I thought, what do I care about that bloody permit? Of course, I'll go to Moscow, if only to lend Mom moral support. But is there anything else I can do for her?
In my life, I have been in a few critical situations and, curiously enough, each time the solution came from where you would least expect it. The method is simple: first you eliminate the "obvious" solution which would be chosen by 9 out of 10 people surveyed, then consider the remaining options. In this case, the "obvious" solution would be to go to the best oncologists we could financially afford.
But I have always remembered V.I. Lenin's historic decision: "We shall take another route". Oddly, it did work out very well for him, albeit with fateful consequences for many others.
So, I thought, is there any other way for me?
Then suddenly the answer struck me, and it had a name — Max.
Max and I have been friends since 1995. We haven't seen each other very often though, and when we did, it was usually at some critical moment in my private life. For example, he kindly let me use his flat when I needed to straighten out some things between me and my boyfriend.
As for Max, we have never even kissed, although he is my age, very good-looking and super nice. We enjoyed sitting in his kitchen, talking well into the early hours, until, exhausted, we would throw ourselves onto the bed and fall asleep, with our clothes on, in each other's arms, like brother and sister. Such a relationship stays in the memory forever. Max did have a girlfriend, but she had emigrated to America and now was living in Los Angeles.
Once I started wearing a bra at the age of 11, all my friendships with boys quickly came to an end. (Incidentally, I always preferred to make friends with boys rather than with girls, and still do. Big time.)
I consider Max my real male friend and respect our relationship. Only animals say it is impossible for a man and a woman, who both are straight and sexy, to be just good friends.
Once Max showed me some documents concerning a new drug that could be used in the treatment of a number of illnesses including cancer. The drug had been developed by members of the Medical Academy and an experienced microbiologist, Svetlana Lyakh, who turned out to be Max's mother.
Now that Mom was ill, I had to find Max as quickly as possible. The problem was that I hadn't been able to get in touch with him for eighteen months: whenever I tried to phone him there was no reply, even the answering machine was off. On my rare visits to Moscow I occasionally drove to his house, but the lights in his windows were out and his car, which was usually parked near the entrance, was nowhere to be seen.
Once again I dialed Max's number — I knew it by heart — and once again there was no reply.
Unable to stay by myself any longer, I went to "Le dues caffe". I joined some friends at their table and broke into tears.
In 3 days my mom will go to this terrible hospital in Moscow: To realize all the horror of free medicine you have to have an experience of living in socialistic state.
I had very bad case of asthma when I was 5 so I spent few years in hospitals in total and I know what they look like.
There is no way my mom is going there!
I immediately stopped crying, calmed down, drove back home and dialed Max's number again.
And Max answered.
It turned out that he had spent the eighteen months in a Tibetan monastery. For the first three months he was confined in a cell with a small window through which he could only see a tiny bit of sky. The food was passed through to him under the door. After the three months of living in utter seclusion he was allowed to leave his cell; for the rest of his stay in the monastery he taught English.
My call that night caught him in the doorway — he had just arrived and hadn't even brought his suitcase in.
"On the plane", he said, "I kept wondering who would be the first person to phone me."
I lost no time in giving him my problem.
When Max heard about my mother's misfortune, he just said, "Don't worry, we'll get everything sorted out" and proceeded to talk at length about Tibet — the local customs, beautiful views, etc. As I listened to him, strange calmness seemed to come over me, together with the feeling that this world is controlled by reason after all.
"Why don't you visit Tibet", concluded Max. "To a woman of many talents like you that would give a good chance to organize a world revolution."
Now I wonder what he meant by that?
Max gave me his Mom's telephone number.
My Mom called his Mom.
His Mom gave the medicine to my Mom.
In a month's time my Mom was cured.
As soon as I returned to Moscow, I went to see Svetlana Lyakh, Max's mother.
An ordinary block of flats, with a broken intercom and the words "Christ is a Jew" scrawled on the wall of the lift.
I was thinking about Svetlana's life.
In 1960 she graduated with biology major from Moscow University with honours. In 1966 she was accepted for postgraduate studies and three years later defended her Ph.D thesis.
A woman of outstanding natural beauty, she never let her good looks interfere with her career as a serious scientist. You wise guys who talk big about the whorish nature of Russian beauty, why don't you learn to keep your mouth shut?
Svetlana's work focussed on Antarctic microorganisms, in particular on melanin, a dark pigment located in the outer layer of the cell wall and providing protection for a cell. The microorganisms had been delivered by Soviet scientists working in the Antarctic. They proved an interesting subject of investigation due to their unusual cell division and adaptation to the severe Antarctic environment characterized by the presence of huge ozone holes. In other words, at that early stage the study of melanin in Antarctic microorganisms was confined to the ecological aspect.
Apart from her thesis, Svetlana wrote three books on the subject1. Shortly after the first publication, however, the university administration shelved the project as "one of secondary importance". Now Svetlana was left to work all on her own. She wrote two more books and went on to carry out the research in melanin for the next 15 years, all in her spare time — quite a feat in Soviet Russia, where a woman had to spend a lot of time and effort doing routine household chores.
In the course of her "private investigation" Svetlana discovered that the melanin-containing cells of Antarctic microorganisms had healing properties. This opened up a new world of possibilities in research and implementation. That's not to say that the ecological approach was no longer of interest — as the cells had been found to have enormous antiradiation potential, melanin could be effectively employed, for example, in purification of radiation-polluted soil or water.
But now Svetlana's attention was centred on the use of Antarctic microorganisms for medical purposes. The result of her research was a new organic drug that she named Astromelanin.
She took out seven patents issued by the Government of Russia on different inventions involving Astromelanin. The drug could be used in production of bioactive supplements for food, medicines and cosmetics (2 patents); as an agent acting on bioactive points and zones (2 patents); as an antitumor agent (2 patents); and as a medicine for a number of pathologies such as osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, arthrosis, gastric and stomach ulcer, conditions connected with disruptions in the immune system, also in cardiology and gynaecology.
Svetlana told me the whole story over a cup of tea in her Moscow flat. The table had been laid out in the hall as the only room had barely enough space for the bed and an enormous number of books stacked up all over the place. In my mind, I tried, out of sheer curiosity, to estimate the size of the flat — the hall where we were sitting measured about 4 square metres, the bedroom about 6 square metres, and the kitchen about 4. The scanty furniture, I noticed, was old and of poor quality. It seemed utterly mystifying that a scientist who had made such a startling discovery should live in such miserable conditions.
Astromelanin was a big success in quite a few international invention contests. The list of the awards it received is rather impressive.
Brussels: The Eureka World Invention Contest
1998: bronze medal
1999: gold medal
2001: gold medal
Paris: The Concours Lepine International Invention Contest
1999: bronze medal
2000: gold medal (Medaille d'Honneur)
Moscow: The Archimedes International Invention Show
1999: silver medal
2000: gold medal
2001: silver medal
1st International Innovation and Investment Show
2001: silver medal
New York: The UNO International Invention Contest
2002: special prize
Geneva: The International Invention Contest
2002: silver medal
My interest aroused, I ventured a few questions. "So what's the situation like now, after all those awards? Have you been flooded with propositions from the Government and pharmaceutical companies? Are private investors camping on your doorstep? Do you find it difficult to choose from so many tempting offers?"
Svetlana gave me a sad and somewhat condescending smile and said with a sigh, "You know, I, too, thought it would be like that. Why, I even dreamed that one day I might be awarded the Nobel Prize. Alas, in order to become a nominee you have to cure at least 1,000 patients. No hospital would agree to use a new drug for treating humans unless it had received an official approval of the Ministry of Health. But people from the Ministry said they couldn't give their approval before more research had been done and they didn't seem to have enough money for that. So what were we to do?
At our own expense, we tested Astromelanin for toxicity on rats; it proved to be so low-toxic that any risk of harmful side effects or overdosage was excluded.
We even wrote to Yeltsin asking for help (and we had got three prominent members of the Academy of Science — Head of the Radiology Center, Head of the Cancer Research Center, and Head of the Institute of Experimental Diagnosis and Therapy of Tumors to sign the letters), but all to no avail. And we tried to arrange to meet some top-ranking officials, but you were expected to grease someone's palm to make an appointment, and they wanted such a lot of money — why, my salary was nowhere near good enough to satisfy their appetites."
I listened gobsmacked to that incredible story. Was it really possible that no one wanted to make millions (or billions, or trillions for that matter) over that deal? Ah but of course, government officials are prohibited by law to conduct business, which means that they won't get a penny out of those prospective millions. As for the businessmen who could start the production of Astromelanin, first they would need to receive a licence from the same government officials — a vicious circle.
The letter to Yeltsin cites Dr. Van Hoff, Head of Institute for Drug Development and Cancer Treatment, San-Antonio, Texas, who showed that Astromelanin when administered for six days inhibited completely the growth of human breast cancer cells. Another opinion the letter refers to is that of Dr. Robert A. Newman, Professor of Medicine from Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, who has reported that "Astromelanin exhibits marked cytotoxic activity against human cancer cells and seems an interesting and promising drug."
Moreover, Svetlana has never been granted an international patent, although she has applied three times. Once it even went through all the necessary stages of the proceeding until it reached the so-called "national phase", at which point an applicant has to pay $30,000. Now that's really funny, considering Svetlana's pension of $75 per month."
P.S Only recently I got the permission from the government to produce astromelanin as food supply. Well, better then nothing.
The product is due to be on the market next year.
More information about astromelanin you can find www.astromelanin.com
1[Liakh S.P. Microbial Melanins. — Science Publishers, Moscow, 1972; Liakh S.P. Acclimatization of Microorganisms to Low Temperatures. — Science Publishers, Moscow, 1976; Liakh S.P. Microbial Melaninogenesis and Its Functions. — Science Publishers, Moscow, 1981].
