Destiny of Serbia Is In Our Hands

Dr Miodrag Stojković, a scientist, was in 2004 considered to number among the twelve most perspective scientists in the world. Today he is deputy director at the "Principe Felipe" Research Center in Valencia, Spain with a staff of scientists that numbers about three hundred people. Their task is to make stem cells available to patients as quickly as soon as possible in order to successfully treat heart conditions, diabetes, Parkinsons and Alzheimer’s diseases.

By Radmila Stanković

When it comes to accolades, suffice is to say that our man from Leskovac has achieved a scientific career that deserves a simple tribute: hats off! Dr. Miodrag Stojković (42) feels that his mission is to treat ill people by cloning. Diabetics, those suffering from spinal cord disease or a bad heart, those who suffer from Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s diseases can all expect to benefit… His working day lasts from morning to evening. He presently lives with his wife Petra in Valencia and has the privilege to enjoy a sea view and orange plantations from his terrace. When he has some free time, he reads scientific publications and listens to classical music. As a child he played football and basketball, and today he swims from time to time, rides a bike and takes regular walk.

The fiasco of our national team at the World Cup he saw as the mirror of a country that still doesn’t have a hymn to provide motivation when it is needed most, at the start.

In the world of science Dr Miodrag Stojković enjoys a reputation that few researchers can claim. When layperson asks what it is that he does, our collocutor replies, "I am attempting to resolve biological mechanisms of early human development, to discover what causes some diseases and how to prevent their occurrence."

Early human development was a cue to ask Dr Miodrag Stojković about his childhood, what he remembers as his most beautiful moments, and if he holds bad memories.

– My childhood was splendid because I spent time in my hometown of Leskovac, while I spent winter and summer holidays, sometimes state holiday, in the native village of my mother in the far south of Macedonia. It was excellent because as a child I shared everything with my buddies. We played football and basketball together, went swimming together, climbed mountains and the surrounding hills, worked in the fields, helped with domestic animals… Had I not had such a childhood, today I wouldn’t feel such great love and respect for nature.  What bad memories do I have from childhood? What springs to the mind is that even then I often witnessed situations when people weren’t able to communicate among themselves.

What do you think today about your education and its importance for your future life, in the world of science?

– I can freely say that my education was decisive for my future vocation. My parents never forced me to learn, they somehow succeeded in making me see school as a place where I could satisfy my curiosity and a place where I could get answers to my questions. I never had the impression that I had to attend school. Today it is similar with my occupation. The day when I say I must go to work, I’ll stop doing what I’m doing now.

Is there a moment in your youth that you remember as being decisive, when you decided what you would do in life? Did you ever want to do anything else?

– If my dream had come true, I would now be a retired basketball player. Actually, there were many decisive moments, accidental and intentional. However, what was decisive was my fascination with microscopes. As a kid my dream was to have a microscope, to work with it. Naturally, at that time, those were dreams about children’s microscopes and only later, when I began to work on my doctor’s thesis in Germany, I began working with the real plaything. That was a decisive moment in my life, that beginning of working with embryos and cells in Munich. I that realised that that was my love, my obsession, the world that fascinated me and to which I belonged.

What was your main motivation in leaving the country when, after you finished your veterinary studies in Belgrade, you left for Germany?

– I left primarily because of the catastrophic situation in our country at that time. I wanted to go somewhere where I could have the chance to prove myself and where I would be given the opportunity to turn my first love into the love of my life.

Did you have a hard life, did you suffer poverty?

– When I recall my childhood, my studies, I realise that life was hard both for me and my family. However, I don’t know if I would call it suffering or the school of life. Poverty was always there, especially during my studies and later while I worked on my doctor’s theses in Munich. To survive in that expensive city and to help to my family back home, I sometimes had to work, odd jobs (in order to validate my Belgrade’s Veterinary Faculty’s diploma in Germany I had to study four more terms) parallel to my studies. On weekends I worked as a medical technician and nursed old people, during the week I helped out at the nearby University farm… However, I’ve never regretted this part of my life because it helped me recognise life’s values.

Did you feel you were handicapped being as a Serb at the beginning of your scientific career? Do you think it would have been easier for you if you were an American, German or British citizen?

– Those were really difficult and unhappy years for us Serbs but I used to meet many of my fellow countrymen who proved through their hard-work and results that we were not at all inferior compared to others. It was very difficult to obtain a student visa, to overcome the red-tape and to realise rights that others are automatically granted to owing to their descent.

Is the first animal you cloned in Germany still alive?

– It was at the end of the nineties. According to my knowledge that cow had many young…

How did you feel when Time Magazine included you among the twelve most perspective scientists in the world?

– Motivated. Every acknowledgment motivates.

What is it that you do today in Valencia?  – Currently I am deputy director at the Principe Felipe Research Center in Valencia. It is a superb modern institute that spreads over 32,000 square metres and employs three hundred people. My task is to convey my experience and knowledge acquired in Germany and Great Britain to those working here, to direct all groups at the Institute towards the objective of speeding up the deployment of scientific results in medicine. This means to transmit stem cells as soon as possible from the laboratory to patients. I also have a group of young scientists engaged in differentiating stem cells and researching the complex but still undiscovered mechanism of early human development.

How would you describe your ordinary working day?

– I am extremely happy not to have an ordinary working day. Every day is different because the science in which we are engaged progresses extremely quickly. There are some changes every day – we obtain fascinating results, we begin new projects. My working day begins early in the morning at home. First I read my e-mail to check if I have any important messages. Then I continue working in the car where my wife and I discuss what is on our daily agendas. At work, however, I realise that the day was too short and so I continue working at home until late in the night. Over the last several years it has become a regular practice to continue working at home, at a computer.

Miodrag Stojković was born on July 5, 1964, in Leskovac, where he completed his elementary and medical education. He graduated from Belgrade Veterinary Faculty in 1990 and immediately started working with the Pharmaceutical Company Zdravlje in its Research Institute. In 1991 he left for Hamburg where he worked as a medical technician until 1993. Then he moved to Munich where he engaged in parallel studies: to get its diploma validated in Germany and to complete postgraduate studies at the Veterinary Faculty of the University Ludwig- Maximilian. In 1995 he began working at this University as a scientific associate, improving laboratory conditions for breeding animal embryos. He obtained his doctor’s degree in 1996 in embryology and biotechnology, and since 1997 has been one of the leading scientists in Europe who, together with Professor Elkhart Wolf and Dr Valeri Zakhartchenko, intensively worked on cloning domestic animals. This cooperation produced Germany’s first cloned animal. In October 2002 he moved to Newcastle (England) where he worked with stem cells produced from the human embryo. In the Institute of Human Genetics he was the first scientist in Great Britain who obtained a new line of human embryonic stem cells and described the process in full. From December 2003 he was assistant and eventually professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Newcastle, where he worked as a deputy director with the Institute of Human Genetics. He isolated new lines of stem cells in order to deploy them as soon as possible in cell therapy and the treatment of diseases. Owing to his scientific achievements, his experience and demonstration of practical results, the British Government in August 2004 granted him a license to be the first in Europe, and indeed in the Western world, to begin producing human embryonic stem cells from so-called cloned embryos. The distinguished British Time Magazine in 2004 included him among one of the most perspective scientists in the world. Today he is a deputy director at the "Principe Felipe" Research Center in Valencia. He is a guest professor at the Military Medicine Academy in Belgrade and the medical faculties in Kragujevac and Kosovska Mitrovica. His German wife Petra has been working with him for the last ten years.

What is your wife’s field of work?

Petra is responsible for part of a project in my very young and ambitious group. Her assignment is to create the most optimal conditions for breeding stem cells so as to make it more efficient and to improve the system that enables us to deploy stem cells clinically.

What is your scientific objective now and in the next period?

– Currently, from stem cells, we produce cells with characteristics of the nervous system, muscular tissue, we are "coaxing" stem cells to produce insulin in order to deploy them in the treatment of various human diseases (spinal cord injuries, diabetes…) After summer we expect the Spanish government to pass regulations that will allow us to use nuclear transfer (cloning) so that we can obtain specific lines of stem cells to study pathogenesis i.e. the origin of various human hereditary diseases.

– Do you dream about the Nobel Prize?

– No, I don’t dream it and I don’t think about it. I believe that the role of a scientist is to contribute to the development of civilisation – in this case to the development of modern medicine. If results help us to eliminate some terrible human disease, that means we have achieved something. If we succeed in helping patients, the fact that they have a better quality of life will be a sufficient prize.

Is it true, as we hear, that investing in science is exceptionally expensive? How is the power acquired through a new scientific discovery in medicine manifested? How much is science in the service of politics?

– There is not much truth in that. Disease certainly costs a country much more than the amount that country invests into science in general, not to mention medicine. Power is enormous because knowledge is power and it is manifested in the general education of one nation. Knowledge and power are there when answers don’t start with I don’t know, I don’t understand, it has not been proved…

With the development of stem cell science, politics has realised its chance to inform the public in one or another, that the chosen scientific way is correct and to back both its arguments and its own strategy as the right one. For instance, due to politics and regulations in Germany, scientists there are not allowed to do what scientists in Great Britain and Spain have been doing for a long time.

What do you think is the greatest problem in Serbia, what is it that prevents us from moving on from a dead end?

– Our favourite saying – Luck in misfortune! We seem to be unable to understand that the destiny of our country is in our own hands and that it’s up to us to decide whom we shall trust: it depends on us whether some will flourish while others are left with empty hands.