Laboratory of Proteomics for Drug Discovery

1. Key Members

2. Background and objectives

Comprehensive analysis for proteins, the direct targets of drugs, have become capable in a high-throughput and high-sensitivity fashion with the evolution of mass spectrometers and AI-based data analysis methods. These advancements have led to significant progress in clinical proteomics, which are characterized by high complexity and a large number of samples.

Our project aims to develop state-of-the-art proteomics technologies and apply them to the analysis of clinical samples in order to discover new drug targets and treatments, and to develop new biomarkers useful for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

3. Overview of our research

I. Activity-based drug target discovery

Cancer and neurodegenerative diseases are known to develop and progress due to signalling abnormalities. We have developed cutting-edge proteomic analysis technologies to obtain 'real' signalling information from fresh frozen clinical samples.

Using these technologies, we have obtained proteome and phosphoproteome data and are investigating individual differences in signalling and how they are altered by treatment, with the aim of discovering new therapeutic targets and developing treatments.

II. Liquid biopsy diagnostics for precision medicine

We have developed large-scale sample processing technologies for biomarker discovery, primarily from extracellular vesicles in blood. Using these technologies, we have established methods to conduct large-scale biomarker candidate discovery and large-scale validation and applied them to various diseases.

Laboratory of Proteomics for Drug Discovery