Tomoki Takashina

Affiliation: Department of Intractable Diseases

Title: Hepatic stem cells engineered from human fibroblasts with recombinant protein can rescue mice with lethal liver failure by transplanting 10 cells 

Comments: I am very happy to receive such a prestigious award. I would also like to express my gratitude to the many doctors who have cooperated with us. When I first started working on this project several years ago, I was trying to induce hepatocyte differentiation by introducing transcription factor proteins into the cell nucleus. We purified recombinant proteins and tried several transcription factors on a daily basis, but we were still at a standstill because of the lack of success. It was under such circumstances that we came across the artificial transcription factor system, which is the key to this project, and I think it was a turning point for us. Of course, it took a lot of study, but we were able to obtain positive data that showed us the way forward, and we were feeling a positive response. We were finally able to submit a paper on the engineering method of mesenchymal stem cells into hepatocyte-like cells, which was the preliminary step to this story. We will compile the contents of this presentation as soon as possible, aiming to publish it in a top journal and further develop it for clinical application in the future.

Kenta Nakano

Affiliation: Department of Laboratory Animal Medicine

Title: Identification of genes responsible for hypoinsulinemia in a novel diabetes model (ihs) mouse

Comments: I am deeply honored to receive this award. Winning this award was something I never imagined would happen. I'd like to express my gratitude to the people who have supported my research. ihs mice have many genetic mutations such as the mutations that cause hypoinsulinemia and insulin hyposecretion. I will identify these causative genes and clarify their functions in the future. And, I will continue to hone my skills to stay worthy of this award. Thank you.

Keisuke Yanagida

Affiliation: Department of Lipid Life Science

Title: Mechanism of DHA supply between mother and child during pregnancy

Comments: I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Mitsuya, Director of the Institute, Dr. Ishizaka, Deputy Director of the Institute, and the judges for selecting me for the Summer Retreat 2022 Excellence Award. Dr. Kanatani of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Tokyo and Dr. Hishikawa of Nippon Medical School, who are both alumni of our laboratory, have been leading this research, and I have joined them in the middle of the work, making the last spurt of the project; the three of us share the joy. The award, together with the feedback I received from participants at the retreat, will be a great encouragement to me preparing for manuscript. Finally, I would like to thank the doctors of the institute who have always given us young researchers their full support and encouragement. I would like to continue to work hard so that we young researchers would liven up the whole research activity of NCGM.