Members

(April 1, 2016 ～ March 31, 2020)

Greeting

I am in charge of drug discovery pathology. Pathology is one of the medical and life science fields for understanding the cause and pathogenesis of a disease through morphological observations using microscopes. I have been teaching pathology at Kyoto University for over 20 years, and I primarily support pathological studies of mouse and human samples at the center for anatomical, forensic, and pathological research in the graduate school of medicine.

Our graduate school supports about ten educational courses (The Graduate Courses of Integrated Research Training).I take part in one of them, a pathology and pathophysiology course that is the only one of its kind in the whole world. Graduate students can also take a training course in mouse histology and anatomy. Furthermore, we are preparing a drug discovery course in which a unique textbook will be used for the special curriculum organized for students who will learn the basics of pathology for drug discovery through lectures and practical training.

We look forward to your participation!

Drug discovery medicine and pathology

We are studying the combination of various image analytical techniques such as atomic force/electron/mass spectrometry microscope and proteomics analysis. In mass spectrometry imaging (left picture), the histone H2A signal was intensely observed in cancer cells surrounded by red lines (right picture). By directly identifying the protein characteristics of diseases, we are aiming to identify a set of proteins that cause disease for the search of biomarkers and to identify target molecules for therapeutic drugs. This new technology is expected to become indispensable for pathology and pharmacokinetics, pharmacology, and the analysis of drug responses in the future.

Tissue research project
(MEXT Special Expense Project)

For drug discovery research, it is essential to secure high-quality research samples. We are conducting our Tissue Research Project on storage technology. Through this project, we promote drug discovery medicine with private-enterprise pharmaceutical companies by sharing top-quality samples. Please contact us if you are interested in collaborative research for the discovery of biomarkers.