Annual Report 2022
Department of Strategic Programs
Yoshikatsu Koga, Katsuya Tsuchihara, Yoshinori Ikarashi, Katsuji Aikawa, Shingo Sakashita, Masahiro Yasunaga, Daichi Ota, Yuka Nakamura, Yuki Iino, Teruo Komatsu
Introduction
Translational researches aimed for "Conquer and Cure Cancer (the 3Cs)" are conducted in the Exploratory Oncology Research & Clinical Trial Center (EPOC). The Department of Strategic Programs will improve the quality of research by establishing an appropriate quality control system for research facilities, an education system for researchers, a support system for pathological specimen preparations, and an appropriate quality control system for research samples. We manage several EPOC projects, which are project-type researches composed by multiple basic and clinical departments that aim to achieve clinical goals. "Section of Liaisons for Translational Research", "Section of Seeds Selections and Evaluations", "Section of Project Managements", "Section of Public Relations for Translational Research", and "Section of Educations and Career Developments for Translational Research" are established in the Department in order to disseminate various medical seeds through collaboration with domestic/overseas academia/companies to the world from EPOC and the Center for Promotion of Translational Research (CPOT). We also manage the developments of medical seeds and career developments of project managers.
The Team and What We Do
- EPOC research projects
"Project for Resistance to Cancer Therapies", "Project for Medical Device Development", and "Project for Co-clinical Trials" have completed three years of project management.
"Project for Supportive Care Research": Project for supportive care research has been active since 2020. In this project, we are conducting translational research from non-clinical research to first in human study for development of novel analgesics and drugs for anti-cancer drug-relevant cardiotoxicity. We identified drug candidates and its target proteins for the treatment of cardiotoxicity caused by doxorubicin and accomplished proof of concept (POC) in animal and cellular experimental models.
"Project for Prevention of HPV-related Cancer": We have successfully developed all-in-one type adenovirus expressing both Cas9 nickase and 8 guide RNAs targeting E6E7 region of HPV16 genome, which can be stably amplified without deletions, and applied it for a patent. To evaluate its effect, five organoid strains of HPV16-poitive oropharyngeal cancers as well as one PDX strain were established.
"Project for Fully Automatic Specimen Preparation": A joint research agreement was concluded with Sakura Finetek Japan Co., Ltd. Fully automated processing equipment, fully automated embedding machine, and fully automated staining machine were installed in the cancer center. Sampling was performed from surgical materials for esophageal, gastric, and colorectal cancers, and HE specimens were started under various conditions of thickness and staining to examine whether thickness and staining affect AI. The results of the study were as follows. In addition, 1,500 blocks were prepared and examined using a fully automated processing instrument to demonstrate that specimen quality was consistent.
Research support
In FY2022, we supported for pathological specimen preparations included 881 FFPE block preparations, 12,755 thin sections, 1,283 HE stains, 3,083 immunostains, and 146 special stains.
Education
Various lectures, such as lectures on 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 it and a secretariat function of CPOT.
List of papers published in 2022
Journal
1. Takashima H, Ohnuki K, Manabe S, Koga Y, Tsumura R, Anzai T, Wang Y, Yin X, Sato N, Shigekawa Y, Nambu A, Usuda S, Haba H, Fujii H, Yasunaga M. Tumor Targeting of (211)At-Labeled Antibody under Sodium Ascorbate Protection against Radiolysis. Molecular pharmaceutics, 20:1156-1167, 2023