Elena V. Zagainova

Lopukhin Federal Research and Clinical Center of Physical-Chemical Medicine, Moscow, Russia

Elena Zagaynova is a Vice director of Lopuchin Federal Research and Clinical Center of physical-chemical medicine (FMBA).

Prof. Elena Zagaynova’s research focus is on the methods of the latest optical bioimaging from the subcellular level to the patient for the problems of regenerative medicine and oncology and the clinical applications in endoscopy for optical coherence tomography.

She received her Ph.D. in 2000 and the Dr. Sciences in Medicine in 2007 from the Nizhny Novgorod Medical Academy, Russia. She is a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Science.

Prof. Zagaynova is a Senior Member of SPIE society. The results obtained by Elena Zagaynova have been published in more than 280 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Optical imaging in regenerative medicine

Regenerative medicine includes the creation of tissue-engineered constructs, stimulation of organ regeneration, the development of cellular products from iPSCs, and CRISPR technologies. In our studies, optical imaging enabled intravital sorting of properly differentiated cells into adipogenic, chondrogenic, and osteogenic lines from mesenchymal stem cells—laying the foundation for future label-free cell sorting. We were able to track skin formation in recipients from transplanted equivalents—controlling the structure and quality of transplanted tissue-engineered constructs. We analyzed the metabolic and oxygen status of 3D neurospheres from iPSCs, energy metabolism, and intracellular pH changes in neural spheroids carrying Down syndrome—a 3D organ model for drug testing. We determined metabolic changes in living Langerhans islets, which allowed us to select the highest-quality ones for patient transplantation. We also formulated new FLIM and OCT criteria for intraoperative verification of the effectiveness of resected liver regeneration—prognosis and determination of the critical volume of organ resection.