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Under the leadership of Dr. Tomizo Yoshida, the Cancer Chemotherapy Center was established in April 1973, from the understanding that chemotherapy would be the final treatment modality of malignant neoplasms. The establishment of this Center was greatly owed to the financial contribution of the Japan Motor Boat Race Association, the Japan Horse Race Association, and other economists. The Japan Motor Race Association donated greatly for the building and research activities. The Japan Horse Race Association donated research facilities. Regrettably, the founder Dr. Yoshida passed away on the eve of the opening ceremony of the Center. Then, Dr. Yoshio Sakurai became its Director. He organized the newly built Center and initiated and promoted research activities in cancer chemotherapy. Dr. Sakurai retired in 1984 and Dr. Haruo Sugano became Director. He has continued principle of researches along Dr. SakuraiÕs idea and, in addition, stressed biological research in cancer chemotherapy. In 1997, a small annex was built for studies on gene therapy and human genome analysis.
In the Cancer Chemotherapy Center, emphasis has been placed on close collaboration of both fundamental and clinical investigators. From this aspect, development of new anticancer drugs, elucidation of drug resistance, pharmacological studies of anticancer drugs and immunotherapeutic approaches have been made. Recently, studies on gene therapy have been promoted. They have two aspects; one is development of a new modularity using multi-drug resistance gene (MDRI) in combination with high dose chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer and the other is immunogene therapy including development of vectors. Gene research is another new comer. It consists of analysis of hereditary breast cancer genes and human genome sequencing at mega base level under the Human Genome Project supported by JICST (Information Center for Science and Technology of Japan Science and Technology Corporation).
As for drug discovery and evaluation, anticancer drug screening has been carried out in this center since 1974 in close collaboration with National Cancer Institute of the U.S.A. A new screening using a panel of 39 human cancer cell lines began in 1994, which is an information-intensive method to predict modes of action of drugs. In 2000, a new laboratory was established to expand the screening project and to promote the study of molecular pharmacology of cancer based on post-genomic approach.
Another important activity of this Center is the promotion of the national and international collaboration and information exchange in cancer chemotherapy through the Anti-cancer Drug Information Office (ADIO). The Center also has the office of the NCI-JFCR Scientist Exchange Program (formerly the U.S.-Japan Cancer Research Training Program) between the National Cancer Institute, U.S.A. and the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, which has been active since 1988 with high reputation.
The Center keeps two more offices; one is of the International Symposium on Cancer Chemotherapy which is held annually since 1996 and another of the Japanese Association for Molecular Target Therapy (JAMTTC) of Cancer started in 1997. Each office has successfully managed its activity and contributed in developing the research field of molecular target therapy. Moreover, JAMTTC held workshops on the translational research twice, the first one in 2001, and the second one in 2002, and proposed an urgent necessity of promoting the translational research on cancer in Japan. The third workshop on the translational research was held in 2003 toward its materialization. |
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