Team Leader: Teruki Yanagi,
Assistant Professor

Our research team is working to elucidate the clinical state of malignant skin tumors, such as malignant melanomas, squamous cell carcinomas and lymphomas. The laboratory ebuted when I returned to Japan in April 2015. I joined the Skin Surgery Team, led by Dr. Hata, and resumed my research in Japan. The mainstream treatment for malignant tumors is surgery. In cases of metastases, systematic treatments such as chemotherapies are necessary.
In recent years, the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors against many malignant tumors has been verified, but that efficacy is limited. The development of new therapies has been desired. The team has been searching for new therapeutic targets by using the large collection of tumor specimens at the Department of Dermatology, Hokkaido University Hospital. Dr. Hata, the leader of the Skin Surgery Team, is very busy not only performing surgeries and administering chemotherapies at the clinic, but also as a head of the medical office. Despite his busy schedule, he’s been continuing clinical research on malignant skin tumors and pathological research. In April 2016, Dr. Shinya Kitamura joined the team as a graduate student. He’d been doing research for two years, which he published in a paper. 　 He returned to the hospital ward in April 2018 to treat patients. In his place, Dr. Keisuke Imafuku has embarked on his life of experimentation at the graduate school. He’s inherited a research project from Dr. Kitamura and seems to be enjoying the life of research and experimentation. I’ll work to bring my research achievements to the clinical staff.

Download 'Team Yanagi' in the annual report 2018, (, 2 pages total: 1.26MB)