Research area

Tumor immunity, Immunotherapy

Description of your research and your dream!

Ever since cancer was identified as a disease caused by the collapse of the immune system, researchers have made efforts to verify the concept to establish a treatment by the manipulation of the immune system. Currently, our team is advancing the development of "NKT cell-mediated immunotherapy for cancer", the novel therapeutics that Chiba University supports for its research and development. We started to advance the results of our basic research to the clinical research, and we are now working within the framework of the 3rd advanced medical care regulated by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
As the immunotherapy field is led mainly by the academic world, major Japanese pharmaceutical companies are not yet aggressively promoting its development in the clinical research track. However since the Regenerative Medicine Promotion Act came into effect in 2014, the environment to market this innovation as a new therapy has gradually emerged.
In the future, I would like to advance research in cooperation with the relevant departments to be a development model of an academia-led novel therapy. Although front line research in this field is fast evolving, I will analyze the results of clinical studies in basic research to establish a method to reflect on the therapy under development, so that we can develop more effective treatments as early as possible.

Education

1993

M.D. School of Medicine, Chiba University

2002

Ph.D. Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University

Experience

1993

Resident, Chest Surgery, Chiba University Hospital

1997

Fellowship Researcher Chest Surgery, Chiba University Hospital

2002

Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University

2005

Associate Professor, Department of Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University

2007

Associate Professor, Department of Medical Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University

2010

Visiting Scholar, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine on "International Research Experience for Students and Young Researchers" by JSPS

2013

Professor, Department of Medical Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University

Selected Publications

1. Hosokawa, H., Kato, M., Tohyama, H., Tamaki, Y., Endo, Y., Kimura, M. Y., Tumes, D. J, Motohashi, S., Matsumoto, M., Nakayama, K. I., Tanaka, T., and Nakayama, T.: Methylation of Gata3 at Arg261 regulates transactivation of the Il5 gene in T helper 2 cells. J. Biol. Chem. 290(21):13095-13103 (2015)
2. Frigault, M. J., Lee, J., Basil, M., Carpenito, C., Motohashi, S., Scholler, J., Kawalekar, O. U., Guedan, S., McGettigan, S., Posey, A Jr., Ang, S., Cooper, L. J., Platt, J. M., Johnson, F. B., Paulos, C. M., Zhao, Y., Kalos, M., Milone, M. C., and June, C. H.: Identification of chimeric antigen receptors that mediate constitutive or inducible proliferation of T cells. Cancer Immunol. Res. 3(4):356-367 (2015)
3. Endo, Y., Hirahara, K., Iinuma, T., Shinoda, K., Tumes, D. J., Asou, H. K., Matsugae, N., Obata-Ninomiya, K., Yamamoto, H., Motohashi, S., Oboki, K., Nakae, S., Saito, H., Okamoto, Y., and Nakayama, T.: The Interleukin-33-p38 Kinase Axis Confers Memory T Helper 2 Cell Pathogenicity in the Airway. Immunity 42(2):294-308 (2015)
4. Sun, Y., Furihata, T., Ishii, S., Nagai, M., Harada, M., Shimozato, O., Kamijo, T., Motohashi, S., Yoshino, I., Kamiichi, A., Kobayashi, K., and Chiba, K.: Unique expression features of cancer-type organic anion transporting polypeptide 1B3 mRNA expression in human colon and lung cancers: potential biomarker implications. Clin. Transl. Med. 3:37 (2014)
5. Watanabe, Y., Onodera, A., Kanai, U., Ichikawa, T., Obata-Ninomiya, K., Wada, T., Kiuchi, M., Iwamura, C., Tumes, D. J., Shinoda, K., Yagi, R., Motohashi, S., Hirahara, K., and Nakayama, T.: Trithorax complex component Menin controls differentiation and maintenance of T helper 17 cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 111(35):12829-12834 (2014)

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Award

2011

The 3rd Annual Chiba Medical Association Award

2011

The 16th Inohana Alumni Association Award, Development of NKT cell-based Immunotherapy

Society Membership

Japan Surgical Society,
The Japanese Association for Thoracic Surgery,
The Japanese Association for Chest Surgery,
The Japan Lung Cancer Society,
Japanese Cancer Association,
Japanese Society for Immunology,
Japanese Association of Cancer Immunology,
International Association for the Study on Lung Cancer,
Clinical Immunology Society