Professor Shun’ichiro Taniguchi, Head of the Department of Advanced Medicine for Health Promotion, the Institute for Biomedical Sciences, has received an award from the 9th grant of the Kobayashi Foundation for Cancer Research.

The Kobayashi Foundation is a public interest incorporated association that confers grants and awards to pioneering and innovative research for cancer chemotherapy.

Professor Taniguchi was awarded a prize in the category of basic medical sciences of innovative research for his work on the theme “Development of continuous antitumor substance-generating system for targeting solid tumors in the anaerobic microenvironment”. He is currently developing a bifidobacterium preparation that continuously generates and secretes high levels of humanized immune checkpoint (ICP) inhibitory molecules, cytokines, and other substances. Professor Taniguchi is striving for safer and more efficient solid tumor treatment systems, such as chemical surgery, which is a local therapy for solid tumors using the bifidobacterium as a biorobot to produce and secrete anticancer drugs.

According to the Kobayashi Foundation for Cancer Research, the award was to recognize the bifidobacterium-based drug delivery system (DDS) as an exceedingly creative and novel idea to progress research in the medical economy.

The award presentation ceremony was held at Keidanren Kaikan in Tokyo on June 20th, 2015.