Professor Hiroyoshi Nishikawa (Graduate School of Medicine) has been awarded the Japan Academy Prize.
This prize is awarded by The Japan Academy for particularly outstanding academic papers, books, and other research achievements.
The research topic recognized under the award was “Establishment of the Immuno-Genomic Cancer Evolution Hypothesis and its Application to Precision Medicine for Cancer Immunotherapy.”
Nishikawa developed a method for the precise analysis of live human cancer tissue. He demonstrated that genomic mutations in cancer cells both promote their own proliferation and induce an immunosuppressive environment, thereby causing tumor initiation and progression. Nishikawa named this mechanism the “Immuno-Genomic Cancer Evolution Hypothesis.”
This concept is believed to have brought significant advancements to cancer immunology, as well as having opened up a new field in tumor biology. With this research, Nishikawa also established a new technical foundation that integrates molecular targeted therapies aimed at genomic mutations with cancer immunotherapy (immuno-genomic precision medicine), and he is currently pursuing its clinical application.
