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What can you show me at this booth?
We are introducing the systems applicable to drug discovery.
There are various methods of measuring drugs for the purpose of drug discovery.
We develop systems for measuring a large number of living cells using cells' physiological function.
iPS (induced pluripotent stem) cells were established in 2006 by Professor Yamanaka at Kyoto University.
This panel explains how iPS cells can be used for drug discovery.
I saw an exhibit about iPS cells at the entrance of this exhibition hall. But how exactly is Hamamatsu related to iPS cells?
The ultimate goal of iPS cells is the realization of regenerative medicine, but there are still technical and ethical issues.
The application of iPS cells to drug discovery is becoming highly practical.
iPS cells are used in the process of evaluating various kinds of compounds and the drugs' toxicity.
Hamamatsu focuses on iPS cells' application to drug discovery and support drug discovery by developing technologies and products.
What are the advantages of using iPS cells for drug discovery?
I believe there are mainly two advantages.
One advantage is the efficiency of drug discovery process. Using iPS technology, reprogrammed iPS cells can be generated from human cells and be differentiated into various forms of cells.
Because a large number of human cells can be generated, they are suited for drug discovery.
Before iPS cell technology was pioneered, the cells of different species like mice were used for the evaluation of drugs.
But because the nature of the cells was different from that of human cells, the evaluation had risks of failing and finding drug toxicity in the middle of the drug discovery process.
Using human cells from the beginning reduces those risks, and time and cost required for developing new drugs.
Another advantage is the use of iPS cells for diseases.
For example, if this person has a certain kind of disease, the iPS cells generated from this person will have the same disease.
Because a large number of cells with a disease can be produced, they can be used for clarifying the mechanism of the disease and also for developing an effective drug.
This is a new application of iPS cells.
iPS cells will bring a revolutionary change in drug discovery. What kind of products does Hamamatsu provide for drug discovery using iPS cells?
This system is a fusion of Hamamatsu's photonics technology and robotics technology.
This microtiter plate has 1536 wells.
So 1536 different kinds of compounds can be tested at one time by dispending different cells and compounds into these wells.
In other words, a large quantity of compounds can be evaluated very quickly.
We also introduce FDSS/IMACS for evaluating the functions of each cell and NanoZoomer for evaluating drug toxicity by observing the kinetics of various drugs at the tissue level.
What kind of data does FDSS provide?
This data is taken from a microtiter plate with 384 wells.
This is a data of an iPS cell-derived cardiomyocyte.
This is a magnification of one of the 384 wells and it shows the heartbeat of the cardiomyocyte . 384 different kinds of drugs were dispended here and tested for their efficacy.
For example, this irregular pulse occurring in this well confirms that the drug is toxic.
This system automatically analyses and evaluates 384 wells and it has a built-in software which performs automatic waveform analysis.
What is Hamamatsu's plan for new products and technology in the field of drug discovery?
The application of iPS cells to drug discovery is improving, but there are still problems with costs and technology.
If those problems are solved, then iPS technology will be widely used.
Taking those problems into consideration, we will continue to develop technology and systems for drug discovery using iPS cells.
I hope that iPS cells will help the development of many new drugs more and help many people. Thank you.