Annual Report 2018

Department of Analytical Pathology

Nobuyoshi Hiraoka, Yoshinori Ino-Ishikawa, Atsuko Nakazawa

Introduction

 In the Analytical Pathology Department, the pathobiological and clinicopathological characteristics of target molecules are analyzed to evaluate their potential significance in applying diagnostic or treatment use in future. The expression of molecules or genes in human tissues is assessed by morphological techniques, immunohistochemistry, RT-PCR, in situ hybridization, etc. and the results are compared to clinicopathological information. We also try to develop new and more reliable or effective analytical methods and tools.

Research activities

 The tumor-immune microenvironment in pancreatic cancer has been studied clinicopathologically and pathobiologically. We found that endothelial cells in the cancer tissue have dysfunctional expressions of adhesion molecules, resulting in decrement of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. We obtained a new compound that accelerates tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and the antitumor immune response by recovering VCAM-1 expression on the endothelial cells in cancer tissue.

Education

 The analytical techniques were inculcated to technicians and researchers in several departments of the national cancer center.

Future prospects

 We will answer requests regarding the selected project in various types of study containing basic, preclinical and clinical studies and assess the clinicopathological or pathobiological significance of the target molecules. We will develop methods of quantitative analysis to evaluate morphological findings that are currently analyzed qualitatively.