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Center for Promotion of Translational Research

Katsuya Tsuchihara, Wakako Toga, Yoshikatsu Koga, Masahiro Yasunaga, Shingo Sakashita, Daichi Ota, Kyoko Minamoto, Hiroki Tanaka, Kazuma Tamaru, Mitsuyoshi Yoshimoto, Akihiro Ohashi, Akinobu Hamada, Yoshinori Ikarashi, Mami Takahashi, akihiro Sato, Takayuki Yoshino, Masaaki Ito, Katsuji Aikawa, Nobuyoshi Takeshita, Yutaka Tomioka, Takuya Ishii, Noboru Yamamoto, Natsuko Okita, Nobuko Ushirozawa, Takashi Morishita

Introduction

The main purpose of the Center for Promotion of Translational Research (CPOT) is to standardize and share information on translational research support at the National Cancer Center, which is a Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology-accredited institution for supporting translational research, to discover and foster academic seeds inside and outside the NCC, and to train researchers and research support experts.

The Team and What We Do

The head of CPOT also serves as the Director of the Exploratory Oncology Research & Clinical Trial Center (EPOC). As of July 2024, Katsuya Tsuchihara has newly assumed the role of Center Director. The center has been selected for the AMED Translational Research Program (Support Program for University-based Startups in the Medical Field), under which we launched the “NCC Seed Acceleration Program (NCC SAP),” strengthening our initiatives to support startups and accelerate commercialization.

Research Activities

As part of the Translational Research Program Seed A, the center supported 10 projects from within the NCC and 8 from outside (12 in the first year and 6 continued into the second year). Additional funding was provided for two projects showing remarkable progress. All projects underwent performance and Go/No-Go evaluations. As a result, one project was selected for the NCC Startup Support Program (Seed S1) and another for the Regenerative Medicine Support Project, with both projects achieving stage advancement.

Education

In terms of training and education, we held:

Two Non-clinical Research Seminar Series,
Seven CPOT Seminars, and
Nine lectures in a Technical Topics Lecture Series, covering:

1. Latest trends in cancer therapies targeting RNA abnormalities,

2. Drug discovery through protein engineering and development of immunotherapy for refractory cancers,

3. MPS (Microphysiological Systems) and cutting-edge development of biomimetic systems in drug discovery.

For public outreach, we disseminated information through a dedicated website and social media, and participated in events such as BioJapan, Medtec Japan, and the Japanese Cancer Association using catalogs and posters.

Future Prospects

For the upcoming FY2025 commissioned projects, from 14 preF proposals (9 external), 5 projects were selected (2 external), and 3 were adopted by AMED.

For the Seed A support program, 12 projects (8 external) were selected from 28 proposals (19 external), and along with 6 continuing projects from FY2024 (2 external), a total of 18 projects have been designated for support in FY2025.