Health Development and Medicine
- Development of vaccines to avoid concern of medication adherence
- Study of innate and acquired immunity for unique vaccines
- Translational research for clinical application
- A cheaper alternative to antibody-based medicines
- New medical applications to cancer and intractable diseases
Vaccines for lifestyle diseases
Aging societies like that of Japan are seeing increased costs in medical treatments. One of the largest costs is antibody-based medicines, which has created a need for alternative medicines that are equally safe and effective but much cheaper. Patients with lifestyle diseases such as hypertension and diabetes are especially increasing, which is why our lab has focused on new medicines for these diseases. We are considering vaccines as one alternative. Quite often, the targets for lifestyle diseases are self-antigens, which means special care must be given in the vaccine design so that the vaccine does not stimulate an autoimmune reaction. We have had success applying this strategy to a number of lifestyle diseases including hypertension by a vaccine that targets angiotensin II (Ang II) [1, 2], diabetes by a vaccine that targets DPP 4 (dipeptidyl peptidase 4) [3], cardiovascular disease by a vaccine that targets lipoprotein a [4], and finally a DNA vaccine that has an anti-angiogenic effect to treat cancer [5]. This work depends on a number of collaborations, both domestic and abroad.
Figure 1
【References】
1. Nakagami et al. PLoS One 8(3):e60493, 2013.
2. Koriyama et al. Hypertension 66(1):167-74, 2015.
3. Pang et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 111(13):E1256-63, 2014.
4. Kyutouku et al. Sci Rep 3:1600, 2013.
5. Kyutoku et al. Sci Rep 3:3380, 2013.
