On July 25, 2021, at the age of 69, Valery Grigorievich Savchenko, General Director of the National Medical Research Center for Hematology of the Ministry of Health of Russia, Professor, and Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, passed away.
Under his leadership, bone marrow transplantation in Russia began at the State Research Center (now the National Medical Research Center for Hematology). He initiated transplantation programs as well as methods for the prevention and treatment of post-transplant complications. He also established the unique medical school “Leukemias and Lymphomas: Therapy and Fundamental Research”, within which multicenter clinical studies on the treatment of acute leukemias have been conducted.
The multicenter study on acute leukemia treatment formed the foundation for creating the Research Group of Hematology Centers of Russia, which today includes more than 40 hematology centers nationwide. This group carries out cooperative research on the treatment of aplastic anemia, myelodysplastic syndromes, multiple myeloma, lymphoproliferative diseases, invasive mycoses in bone marrow transplantation, and the prevention and management of infectious complications and lymphomas.
Through painstaking cooperative, multi- and interdisciplinary collaboration, thousands of patients with blood disorders have been treated and continue to live actively after therapy. Valery Grigorievich also developed a clear treatment strategy for acute leukemias in pregnant women, proving the necessity and effectiveness of chemotherapy to save two lives — both mother and child. As a result, one-third of affected women achieved recovery, and all of their children were born healthy, developing normally; the oldest of them are now over 20 years old.
Under his guidance, diagnostic algorithms and treatment protocols for hematological diseases were developed. In 2018, an updated two-volume reference was published. This collection, widely known among hematologists for many years as the “Gray Book”, became a desk reference for an entire generation of hematologists, repeatedly consulted as an authoritative source.