The purpose of this research team is to elucidate the pathophysiology of skin malignancies such as malignant melanoma, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, and lymphoma. In 2015, Dr. Yanagi returned from studying in the United States and joined the skin surgery team coached by Dr. Hiroo Hata (currently director of the Hata Dermatology Skin Care Clinic) to begin his research. Surgical treatment is the main approach in treating skin malignancies, but systemic therapy such as chemotherapy is required for advanced or metastatic cases. Although the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors has been proven in many malignancies, their effects are limited and further treatment development is necessary. The tumor research team is searching for new treatment targets through extensive experimentation using abundantly accumulated tumor samples. From 2016 to 2020, Dr. Shinya Kitamura joined this research group and obtained his doctorate. Since then, Dr. Kitamura has been a leader of the Skin Surgery Group, and remains fully committed to both clinical research and surgical guidance. Keiko Tokuchi, Takuya Maeda, and Yu Weng joined us in 2020, and Che-yuan Hsu joined us in 2021. We would like to make efforts to achieve research results that can be returned to clinical sites while taking use of clinical specimens.
Major research results since 2016
- Lipid Nanoparticle-mediated siRNA Transfer Against PCTAIRE1/PCTK1/Cdk16 Inhibits In Vivo Cancer Growth （Yanagi et al. Mol Ther Nuc Acid 2016）
- Drp1 regulates mitochondrial morphology and cell proliferation in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (Kitamura, Yanagi et al. J Dermatol Sci 2017)
- Adjuvant therapy with low-dose interferon-beta for stage II and III melanoma: results of a retrospective analysis （Yanagi et al. Clin Exp Dermatol 2017）
- Pazopanib does not bring remarkable improvement in patients with angiosarcoma （Kitamura, Yanagi et al. J Dermatol 2017）
- Comprehensive cancer-related gene analysis reveals that active KRAS mutation is a prognostic mutation in mycosis fungoides （Yanagi, Kitamura et al. J Dermatol Sci 2017）
- Retrospective study on the correlation between 18-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake in positron emission tomography-computer tomography and tumour volume, cytological activity as assessed with Ki-67 and GLUT-1 staining in 10 cases of Merkel cell carcinoma （Kitamura, Yanagi et al. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol 2018）
- Dermoscopic evaluation for skin grafts after surgery; neo-vascularization correlates with survival of skin grafts: A prospective study （Kitamura, Yanagi et al. J Dermatol Sci 2018）
- Loss of TRIM29 Alters Keratin Distribution to Promote Cell Invasion in Squamous Cell Carcinoma（Yanagi, Kitamura et al. Cancer Res 2018）
- RANK-RANKL signalling pathway contributes to disease progression in cutaneous angiosarcoma: a case report with an immunohistochemical review and in vitro experiments（Maeda, Kitamura, Yanagi et al. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol 2020）
- Loss of dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) does not affect epidermal development or UVB-induced apoptosis but does accelerate UVB-induced carcinogenesis （Yanagi, Kitamura et al. J Dermatol Sci 2020）
- Extramammary Paget’s disease patient-derived xenografts harboring ERBB2 S310F mutation show sensitivity to HER2-targeted therapies （Maeda, Kitamura, Yanagi et al. Oncogene 2020）