JP
Labs and Faculty
Inter-Institutional Cooperative Laboratories
Laboratory of Cancer Biology

OHASHI Akihiro Assoc. Prof. Ph.D.

Theme

Tumor biology, Drug Discovery, Pharmacology

Keyword

Chromosomal instability, DNA replication stress, Molecular target therapy, Multi-omics analysis

Message

Deeply understanding “Cancer Hallmarks and Vulnerability” is important to develop the novel molecular target therapeutics. Genomic instability, which is one of the cancer hallmarks, provokes various oncogenic cellular stresses, such as replication stress, mitotic stress, metabolic stress, and proteotoxic stress. Our research interests are how genomic instability would functionally interact with these oncogenic stresses, and these stresses mediated by chromosome instability would contribute to cancer vulnerability against drug treatments. We are committed to apply our research findings for development of the innovative cancer therapeutics in collaboration with numbers of academia, biotech companies, and pharmaceuticals.

Introduction

In my Ph.D., I was dedicated to study cell cycle machineries of mouse preimplantation embryos in Reproductive Biology Laboratory, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University. This marked a decisive turning point in my carrier to live as a scientist for the rest of my life. In my postdoctoral training, switching research field from embryology to tumor biology, I worked for Dr. Junjie Chen and Dr. Fergus Couch at Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN, USA) for four and half years to investigate molecular functions of BRCA2 gene, which is known as tumor suppressor genes in familial breast and ovarian cancers. After my postdoc, I worked for Oncology Drug Discovery Unit at Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd. starting new carrier as an industry scientist. For 12 years as the industry scientist, I have experienced a series of drug discovery process from the beginning to the end: kick-off new projects, conduct preclinical studies form compound screening to clinical candidate selection, and build the translational/clinical strategies as global team members. In September 2018, I joined National Cancer Center, Kashiwa Campus, to lead basic and translational projects for development of novel cancer therapeutic drugs. I am committed to contribute to drug discovery of novel cancer therapeutics, especially Japan-oriented drug discovery in domestic and international collaborations with academia, pharmaceuticals, and biotech companies.

  • At a meeting

  • In the laboratory

Biography

1993-1997 Dep. Agriculture, Agriculture Engineering, Kyoto University (B.S.)
1997-1999 Dep. Agriculture, Reproductive Biology, Kyoto University (M.S.)
1999-2002 Dep. Agriculture, Reproductive Biology, Kyoto University (Ph.D.)
2002-2004 Postdoctoral Fellow, Radiation Oncology, Mayo Clinic (Dr. Junjie Chen)
2004-2006 Postdoctoral Fellow, Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Mayo Clinic (Dr. Fergus Couch)
2006-2007 Research Scientist, Oncology Drug Discovery Unit, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, Ltd.
2007-2016 Senior Research Scientist, Oncology Drug Discovery Unit, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, Ltd.
2016-2017 Group Head, Oncology Drug Discovery Unit, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, Ltd.
2017-2018 Senior Scientist, Oncology Drug Discovery Unit, Takeda Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.
2018-present Division Head, Translational Genomics, Exploratory Oncology Research & Clinical Trial Center, National Cancer Center
2021-present Adjunct Associate Professor, Division of Cancer Biology, Research Institute for Biomedical Sciences, Tokyo University of Science
2022-present Adjunct Associate Professor, Graduate School of Frontier Science, The University of Tokyo