Bringing out the dormant potentialities of drug medicine

In our laboratory, we comprehensively consider the properties of drug such as drug physical properties, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics properties, and biological properties such as circadian rhythm, we are conducting various research with the aim of developing a new appropriate drug administration design. The major focus of this laboratory is circadian rhythm. The periodicity of biological functions occur in many living organisms including human. And, various periodicity of biological rhythm exist in human such as body temperature and blood component (daily rhythm), female sex hormone (monthly rhythm), and male sex hormone (annual rhythm). Especially, disease conditions also present circadian rhythm, and specific time points are known which the patients deteriorate in condition during daily. Chronotherapy is based on the adjustment of applied drug dose according to the 24-hour variations of pharmacodynamic or pharmacokinetic factors, approximately 24-hour cycles in the physiologic processes that have been observed in humans, bacteria, and plants. This chronotherapy are applied for the drug treatment of asthma and disorder of lipid metabolism,　moreover, the clinical application of chronotherapy for other disease is expected. Therefore, in our laboratory, research is being carried out for the aim to help design improved treatment strategies by using chronotherapy, and to provide clinical application in the future.