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Medicine and Technology in the 21st Century: Future Perspective March 31, Saturday, 2018

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Nihonbashi Life Science Building
Sponsored by: UCLA-Japan Center
Co-sponsored by: Life Science Innovation Network, Japan

Symposium summary
UCLA-Japan Center held a symposium on March 31, 2018 in Nihombashi Life Science building co-sponsored by Life Science Innovation Network (LINK-J). The theme of the meeting was "Medicine and Technology in the 21st Century". The gathering was aimed at bringing together academic scientists, policy makers and industry people. The program began with a Special Address by Dr. Kiyoshi Kurokawa. The first session focused on Technology. The second dealt with the topics relating to Challenges in Medicine and the topics of the third session were Science Policies, Translation and Innovation.

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Special Address
Kiyoshi Kurokawa (Professor Emeritus, the University of Tokyo, Professor Emeritus, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, President of the Science Council of Japan, 2004-2007) opened his talk by discussing his analysis of worldwide publication of science papers in recent years. This was broken down into different countries. He emphasized that the publication from Japan has decreased significantly compared with various developed countries. This is in contrast to a dramatic increase in the number of publication from China. He then went on to discuss various options and possibilities to turn around this trend.

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K. Kurokawa

Challenges in Technology
Dino Di Carlo (Professor, UCLA School of Engineering) gave a talk entitled, "Quantum Diagnostics-From Single-cells to Single-molecules". In this presentation, he discussed the Vortex technology to detect and analyze Circulating tumor cells. Keisuke Goda (Professor, the University of Tokyo) discussed his study aimed at prevention of stroke. This involves the use of microfluidics chip to detect platelet
aggregation. Michihiro Nakamura (Professor of Yamaguchi University) described using nanoparticles for imaging and diagnostics and described development of his nanoparticles called "Thiol Organosilica".

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D. Di Carlo          K. Goda          M. Nakamura

Challenges in Medicine
Fuyu Tamanoi (Professor, Kyoto University; Research Professor, UCLA) discussed Precision Medicine for cancer treatment and proposed the use of the chicken egg tumor model (PDC model; Patient-Derived Chicken model)that could herald the era of tailor-made treatment for individual cancer patient. He also discussed Cancer Nanotherapy as an effective approach to overcome side effect of chemotherapy.
Kohnosuke Mitani (Professor, Saitama Medical University) discussed gene editing technology and gene therapy. He mentioned safety and other issues related to clinical application of the gene editing technology. Yoshiyuki Asai (Professor, Yamaguchi University) discussed gene network and systems biology. In particular, he described his study to construct a gene network that represents a diseased state and discussed what changes can cause reversal to normal state. In addition, he discussed the necessity of AI to select information of interest among massive data.

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F. Tamanoi          K. Mitani          Y. Asai

Science policy, innovation
Junichi Sone (Principal Fellow, JST/CRDS) discussed worldwide trends in Nanotechonology, AI and IoT from the standpoint of program building and policy development. He also mentioned about the importance of developing innovative Biomaterials. Ichiro Nakatomi (President, Nanocarrier) discussed the vision of Nanocarrier and described products that have moved into clinical testing. In addition,
he described recently developed nanotechnology products relating to cosmetics.

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J. Sone I.           Nakatomi          M. Murai

Masaru (Vic) Murai (Founder, TX Entrepreneur Partners, UCLA-Japan Center) discussed TEP projects to develop a new community involving research institutions and universities along the Tsukuba Express with the aim of building new innovative companies. He would like to have many success stories in this area and then to expand similar activities to the global community.
After the sessions, a reception was held to continue discussion. Prof. Tamanoi commented that "the gathering was successful in promoting discussion across different disciplines. This is quite unique for a meeting in Japan, as most Japanese meetings are gathering of people in the same field". The importance of interdisciplinary approaches to address challenges facing us in Medicine and Technology in the 21st century was shared by all the participants.

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UCLA was well represented at the meeting. Mr. Yokouchi who is a member of the UCLA Alumni Association was a master of ceremony and introduced the speakers. He brought a flag of UCLA that was placed at the front of the meeting room.


For more information, please contact Dr. Fuyu Tamanoi (fuyut@microbio.ucla.edu).

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