Director of Medical Radiological Research Center of RAMS granted Takashi Nagai Peace Award

10.01.2008 // Minatom.ru

The director of the Medical Radiological Research Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Anatoly Tsyba has been granted Takashi Nagai Memorial Nagasaki Peace Award

He is the seventh person to have received this prestigious international award, instituted in 1995 in honor of Takashi Nagai, a physician who did a great job treating the atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tsyba got the prize for his active practical support of people affected by radiation and training of young researchers in the field of radiology.

Tsyba is highly reputed in both Russia and abroad, primarily, for his active work to overcome the consequences of the Chernobyl accident. He personally visited the reactor and took an active part in the development of national and international projects to overcome the consequences of nuclear and radiation accidents.   

He organized prophylactic medical examinations of children and adults in the most contaminated territories of Bryansk, Kaluga, Oryol and Tula regions. Jointly with member of the RAMS V.Ivanov, he set up a Russian State Medical Radiation Monitoring Register, a database containing information about the health of 640,000 people affected by radiation.

On the instruction of the Ministry of Health Care of the USSR, Tsyba, jointly with his Japanese colleagues, organized training courses for specialists from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus in the framework of the Chernobyl project of the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation. He initiated projects for radiation-based treatment of prostate cancer and establishment of a rehabilitation center for liquidators of the Chernobyl accident.

Tsyba has taken an active part in WHO’s projects concerning thyroid gland, hematology, epidemiology, particularly, by specifying irradiation doses and introducing new technologies for effective diagnosis and treatment of children with thyroid gland problems.       

With the support of the European Commission, the WHO, the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation and the US National Institutes of Health, Tsyba has established a post-Chernobyl bank of thyroid cancer tissue and nucleic acids. The bank is a source of scientific data used by specialists from many countries, including Japan.