Department of Preventive Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo

History of The Department of Preventive Medicine

The Department of Hygiene (Preventive Medicine), Faculty of Medicine, The University of Tokyo is the oldest laboratory of The University of Tokyo, with a history of over 130 years since its establishment in 1885 by its first professor, Masanori Ogata. While remaining consistent in its goals, it has changed the focus of its research to respond to the social conditions of the time, such as infectious diseases and occupational health. Against the background of the recent decoding of the human genome and the development of molecular biology, the Department of Hygiene changed its name to Molecular Preventive Medicine, and under the leadership of the 8th Professor, Kouji Matsushima, active research was conducted on the elucidation of inflammatory and immune phenomena underlying disease, with a focus on cytokines, and their clinical application in secondary and tertiary prevention.

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Totoki, Y., Saito-Adachi, M., Shiraishi, Y., Komura, D., Nakamura, H., Suzuki, A., Tatsuno, K., Rokutan, H., Hama, N., Yamamoto, S., Ono, H., Arai, Y., Hosoda, F., Katoh, H., Chiba, K., Iida, N., Nagae, G., Ueda, H., Shihang, C., Sekine, S., Abe, H., Nomura, S., Matsuura, T., Sakai, E., Ohshima, T., Rino, Y., Yeoh, K.G., So, J., Sanghvi, K., Soong, R., Fukagawa, A., Yachida, S., Kato, M., Seto, Y., Ushiku, T., Nakajima, A., Katai, H., Tan, P., Ishikawa, S., Aburatani, H., Shibata, T., 2023. Multiancestry genomic and transcriptomic analysis of gastric cancer. Nature Genetics 1–14.
Furuya, G., Katoh, H., Atsumi, S., Hashimoto, I., Komura, D., Hatanaka, R., Senga, S., Hayashi, S., Akita, S., Matsumura, H., Miura, A., Mita, H., Nakakido, M., Nagatoishi, S., Sugiyama, A., Suzuki, R., Konishi, H., Yamamoto, A., Abe, H., Hiraoka, N., Aoki, K., Kato, Y., Seto, Y., Yoshimura, C., Miyadera, K., Tsumoto, K., Ushiku, T., Ishikawa, S., 2022. Nucleic acid–triggered tumoral immunity propagates pH ‐selective therapeutic antibodies through tumor‐driven epitope spreading. Cancer Science cas.15596.
Komura, D., Kawabe, A., Fukuta, K., Sano, K., Umezaki, T., Koda, H., Suzuki, R., Tominaga, K., Ochi, M., Konishi, H., Masakado, F., Saito, N., Sato, Y., Onoyama, T., Nishida, S., Furuya, G., Katoh, H., Yamashita, H., Kakimi, K., Seto, Y., Ushiku, T., Fukayama, M., Ishikawa, S., 2022. Universal encoding of pan-cancer histology by deep texture representations. Cell Reports 38, 110424.
Suzuki, A., Katoh, H., Komura, D., Kakiuchi, M., Tagashira, A., Yamamoto, S., Tatsuno, K., Ueda, H., Nagae, G., Fukuda, S., Umeda, T., Totoki, Y., Abe, H., Ushiku, T., Matsuura, T., Sakai, E., Ohshima, T., Nomura, S., Seto, Y., Shibata, T., Rino, Y., Nakajima, A., Fukayama, M., Ishikawa, S., Aburatani, H., 2020. Defined lifestyle and germline factors predispose Asian populations to gastric cancer. Science Advances 6, eaav9778.
Katoh, H., Komura, D., Konishi, H., Suzuki, R., Yamamoto, A., Kakiuchi, M., Sato, R., Ushiku, T., Yamamoto, S., Tatsuno, K., Oshima, T., Nomura, S., Seto, Y., Fukayama, M., Aburatani, H., Ishikawa, S., 2017. Immunogenetic Profiling for Gastric Cancers Identifies Sulfated Glycosaminoglycans as Major and Functional B Cell Antigens in Human Malignancies. Cell Reports 20, 1073–1087.

The Department of Preventive Medicine is currently conducting research to find appropriate intervention points for the prevention and treatment of cancer and other health problems from the perspective of genomics and informatics. We are analyzing the dynamics of complex systems composed of different types of cells, such as cancer, inflammation, and immune diseases, by measuring a large amount of data at the genomic level and searching for specific phenomena that may serve as intervention targets and biomarkers for prevention and treatment. We are also engaged in developing bioinformatics technology to extract and interpret essential information from large amounts of biological information, such as multidimensional genome sequences and histopathology images, through dimensional compression and visualization.

Current research topics

Profiling of an individual's internal and external immune environment using immune repertoire analysis
Search for carcinogenic factors and intervention points by cancer genome analysis
Contribution to medical equalization by histopathological image analysis

7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo,113-0033 Japan
Email: office-prm< at >m.u-tokyo.ac.jp