Picked from a common garden tree in Thailand, much like a maple by a Japanese front door.

The catchphrase of my laboratory is, "Can cancer be cured? We will cure it tomorrow." We are developing new anticancer agents. Conventional anticancer agents attempt to kill cancer cells, but in the process, they also kill normal cells. Development in this direction seems to have reached a dead end. On the other hand, over the past ten-plus years, the mechanism of cancer development has been significantly clarified. Within human cells, there are about 100 gene segments prone to becoming cancerous. This means there are about 100 types of cancer cells from these alone, but we have focused on a characteristic common to most of them. A great deal of information is exchanged within cells, and the flow of information is faster in cancer cells compared to normal cells. Therefore, if we can find something that blocks this flow of information within cancer cells, we might be able to prevent cancer.

Do such substances exist in the natural world? Our research begins with a treasure hunt for them. We collect the roots and leaves of tropical plants or take soil samples from the deep sea. We literally just pick them up. This might sound like a daunting task, but it's actually quite interesting. About one in a thousand samples might turn out to be something useful for various applications. The two anticancer agents we recently discovered are conocarpin and aglaiastatin. Both are potent and have been shown to inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells even in small amounts. We've even received offers from clinicians to conduct joint research.