SAYA HIDEYUKI

Precision Medicine Area Leader

Exploring “precision medicine” through a new industry-academia cooperative framework

Personalized medicine is gathering attention in recent years because of the limitation of conventional medical treatment for average patients. Still personalized medicine is the ideal treatment for each patient but there are gap from reality. “Precision Medicine” is the way to fill the gap of personalized medicine and conventional medicine. Patients are set into specific subgroup and are given appropriate treatment by each subgroup.

Currently, genome sequencing is the method for the separation of subgroup. However, we will intend to develop the other method to separate subgroup by using all the analysis including proteomics, intestinal bacteria patters and etc.
Keio University is extremely strong in omics-based analysis and biology, and we are aiming for the next generation of personalized medicine using a wider range of big data.

In many cases, basic science researchers conduct their projects with intellectual curiosity as a driving force. If the basic researcher has excessive attention to applications, there is a danger that the true value of science will be spoiled, but the researcher need to consider that he/she should provide the result to contribute the society. I think the significance of collaborating with JSR Corporation is that the researchers can image social implementation as their achievements.

Since what we are delivering is responsible for human health, we will need to provide safe and effective outcome to society. For that reason, sometimes we need to discard the things that do not work. But even these research seeds can be spun-off and be made useful in another application. That’s the kind of judgment I hope to exercise.

We want to demonstrate a new framework of industry-academia collaboration that is novel challenge in Japan. We want to be the success model which companies build laboratories in university that are common in United States. And we want that the model will attract other Japanese company and university.