Takeda Pharmaceutical has signed an agreement to undertake collaborative research with Keio University School of Medicine (Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo) and Niigata University (Niigata City, Niigata) at Takeda’s Shonan Research Center (Fujisawa City, Kanagawa) regarding the search for and functional analysis of disease-related RNA-binding proteins. This may lead to treatments in CNS and oncology.

The Shonan Incubation Laboratories is a continuous initiative to invite excellent researchers from external research facilities to Takeda’s Shonan Research Center, where they work together with Takeda researchers. This collaboration focuses on disease-related RNA-binding proteins, and is scheduled to last three years, with professor Hideyuki Okano of the Physiology Laboratory at Keio University School of Medicine directing the overall research, with associate professor Masato Yano from Niigata University participating as well.

The relationship between disease pathology and RNA-binding proteins has gradually become clearer in recent years, and a diseases’ onset and progression is now thought to be linked to abnormalities in RNA-binding proteins. This research collaboration will focus on the systematic and comprehensive study of RNA-binding proteins, with the aim of creating new therapeutic target candidates and game-changing technologies for drug discovery.