Molecular Target Therapy For Cure of Cancer

Japanese

Laboratory of Innovative Cancer Therapeutics

(Leader: Akira NAKAGAWARA, MD, PhD)

Summary of research:

The post-genome era has enabled to identify the therapeutic targets as real molecules.  The drugs for therapy targeting the molecules are called as"molecular targets against cancer".

Our group has identified those molecular targets by pursuing the following strategies.

1. Comprehensive analysis of genomic aberrations
   (ArrayCGH analyses of neuroblastoma, liver tumors, lung cancer, etc.)
2. Comprehensive genes expression profiling
   (Generation of in-house cDNA microarray carrying 11.000 genes obtained from cDNA libraries we generated from pediatric cancers)
3. Important candidate genes approach
   (p53 family genes, NFBD1/MDC1, Plk1, etc.)

The significant genes so far identified include TrkB, ALK, Plk1, KIF1Bb, LMO3, BMCC1, NFBD1/MDC1, UNC5D, ncRAN, TAp73, TAp63, RUNX3, ECEL1, NLRR, etc.

Keywords:

Molecular target therapy of cancer, TrkB, ALK, AutoDock, Therapeutic antibody

Recent main publications:

• Chen Y et al.  Nature 2008; 455: 971-974
• Munirajan AK et al.  J Biol Chem 2008; 283:24426-24434
• Tomioka N et al. Oncogene 2008; 27: 441-449
• Nakanishi M et al. J Biol Chem 2007; 282:22993-23004
• Aoyama M et al.  Cancer Res 2005; 65: 4587-4597
• Ohira M et al.  Cancer Cell, 2005; 7: 337-350.