Hiroyoshi Nishikawa from the National Cancer Center Japan on ‘Highly Cited Researchers 2025.’

November 14, 2025

‘Highly Cited Researchers’ are those whose work are cited particularly frequently, considered the top one percent in their specific fields. 6,868 researchers from 61 countries and regions have been recognized this year.

Reference: Highly Cited Researchers--Clarivate (link to external site)

Hiroyoshi Nishikawa

Hiroyoshi Nishikawa

Award category: Immunology

Chief - Division of Cancer Immunology, Research Institute
Chief – Division of Cancer Immunology, Exploratory Oncology Research & Clinical Trial Center (EPOC)

Dr Nishikawa has studied the mechanisms of anti-tumor immune response suppression in cancer immunity. In particular, he has found that genetic abnormalities in the cancer cells themselves play a critical role in the establishment of immunosuppressive networks, including CD4-positive regulatory T (Treg) cells, and advocates the “immunogenomic cancer progression theory” and is working to realize immunogenomic precision medicine. He also found that CD8-positive killer T cells, which are important for anti-tumor immune responses, are suppressed by regulatory T cells depending on the nature of the antigen (self vs non-self) as recognized by the T cells. Furthermore, in recent years, he has elucidated the mechanism by which bacteria present in the gut (gut bacteria) influence the immune response to cancer in distant organs. These findings are extremely important for understanding not only tumor immunity, but also various immune responses such as autoimmunity, allergies, infection, and transplant-related immunity.