Outline
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Our laboratory learns through pharmacokinetics, pharmaceutics and experimental technology to maintain a high level of research, and develops an academic research environment involving the delight of discovery and achievement. In our laboratory, the students are expected to develop the abilities for researching advanced pharmacokinetics and pharmaceutics, and cultivating humanity essential for better communication through friendly competition.
Our main thema is to study the distribution of drugs and nutrients to the retina, and to clarify the molecular basis for their permeability at the blood-retinal barrier (BRB), and we have aimed to be “World-Leading Laboratory of BRB” in Toyama. Our research idea was triggered, when Prof. Hosoya worked on drug transport across the conjunctiva in the University of Southern California, and it was "The development of systemic drug delivery to the retina is of great importance for the treatment of retinal diseases, since ocular instillation is unhelpfull in the delivery of drugs to the retina".
After taking a new post in Tohoku University, Prof. Hosoya kicked the research project on the BRB into gear by collaborating with Prof. Terasaki who has strenuously studied the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Interestingly, the concept of BRB and BBB were proposed a century ago, and the BRB still remains a new frontier in life-science research, since little is known for the BRB while knowledge on the BBB has been accumulated.
Here in Toyama, we are trying to apply the transport function at the BRB to the new development of "Orally Administered Eye Drop", and energetically investigating the mysteries of the BRB.