Annual Report 2020

Department of Strategic Programs

Yoshikatsu Koga

Introduction

 In order to deploy various medical seeds from the Exploratory Oncology Research & Clinical Trial Center (EPOC) around the world, integration with the research divisions of EPOC is necessary. Improving the quality of research in both core facilities and each research division of EPOC is required. The Department of Strategic Programs manages common laboratories/core facilities of EPOC and establishes an appropriate quality control system for human clinical samples at EPOC. EPOC aims to be a high-quality world-class TR center by performing appropriate quality control of experimental facilities (hardware) and educating researchers (software).

The Team and What We Do

• EPOC research projects
  - Definition of the EPOC projects: (1) Research managed by the Department of Strategic Programs of EPOC; and (2) Research composed of multiple basic and clinical departments.
  - Requirements for the EPOC projects: (1) Clarify the clinical derivation, including clinical research; (2) Aim to deploy the basic and clinical results to companies; and (3) Clarify the research period and achievement goals.
  In FY2020, “Project for Resistance to Cancer Therapies”, “Project for Medical Device Development”, “Project for Co-clinical Trials”, “Project for Supportive Care Research”, and “Project for Prevention of HPV-related Cancer” were managed.
  
• Management of clinical samples
  The sample support team started to manage human clinical samples collected at the National Cancer Center Hospital East (NCCHE) and EPOC (Kashiwa) in FY2017. In FY2019, we established a central support system which can manage the work from collection to processing and storage of human clinical samples. Under this support system, we have started to accept new human clinical samples. In FY2020, there were 1,026 blood samples and 36 tissue samples of management level A (central management), and 2,082 blood samples of management level B (local management). Thus, a total of 3,144 samples were collected in the Kashiwa Campus for translational research. The number of research projects supported as management level A was 12.

Education

 Various lectures, such as lectures on animal experiments, gene recombination experiments, biohazard/chemohazard experiments, and human clinical samples, were held as education for researchers.

Future Prospects

 The Department of Strategic Programs will manage and support the research in each division of EPOC as a common department of EPOC.