Page 15 - Shimadzu Journal vol.3 Issue3

Interview

certain type of tissue. This is because it allows high-resolution Within my area of work, which is mainly preclinical DMPK, we
analysis. I think it is more appropriate to use it to look in a focused handle a lot of samples that originate in clinical research, and there
way at kidney tissue, brain tissue or liver tissue, and to get an is an increasing tendency towards working with materials actually
accurate idea of how compounds, metabolites and biomarkers are used for clinical research. Since pharmaceutical companies exist to
distributed and fluctuate within those settings. promote the health of patients, I would like to see Shimadzu
working on the development of instruments that do not simply
perform analysis for the sake of analysis, but rather take a step
I see. In other words, it’s not a replacement for ARG, it’s a
further towards the bigger vision of health care, for example by
technology with the potential to provide supplementary cooperating with us on the development of methods and
information that cannot be obtained using ARG, and thus further instruments for use in analyzing markers that predict disease.
help progress research and development in drug discovery.
Exactly. It’s not possible to do everything using IMS, but we can use We certainly hope that you will continue to collaborate with us
it with sample slices, to roughly check whether or not the target on the development of analysis instruments that can evaluate
substances are present. Once we know where they are, we can treatment as a whole, not only for diagnosis but also to confirm
perform more detailed analysis using mass spectrometry. prognosis. Thank you for your insights and your time today.

Both methods have advantages don’t they? And these advantages
Interviewer’s Comments
can be used, rather than merely making up for the disadvantages.
We have had high expectations right from the start in regard to the
uniqueness of the concept behind imaging mass spectrometry.
Hopes for the Future Recently, not only have significant advances been made in the
hardware, but significant progress has also been made in the field of
pretreatment technology research aimed at practical utilization. My
the future?
conversation with Mr. Kaji confirmed that IMS is being applied
They are mainly to do with quantitative analysis. Pretreatment is nowadays not only in basic medical research, but also in a variety of
important for this. Particularly, how evenly you can apply the matrix settings at the forefront of drug discovery research.
with good reproducibility. An automatic matrix application device is In response to this level of anticipation from our users, I feel strongly
required for this. I think that the vaporization-type iMLayer, actually, is encouraged to continue with technological research that aims to
a very good device. When I present my results at seminars and so on, “Realize Our Wishes for the Well-Being of Both Mankind and the
researchers looking at improving sensitivity and quantitative evaluation Earth.”
are always very interested in the automation aspect of the instrument.

Chasing after the development compounds themselves is my major
task using IMS, but I’d like to talk about another area. I am currently
responsible for preclinical DMPK, and use laboratory animals for
efficacy evaluation. I’d like to use the technology more in these
evaluations. If the disease mechanism is a new one, efficacy
evaluation becomes difficult. I’d like to discover biomarkers that can
be used in that evaluation. If those biomarkers are reflected in
human blood parameters when the drug goes into clinical trials, they
can be used as indicators, and as markers to monitor treatment
effectiveness when the drug is actually administered.

iMScope TRIO: Imaging Mass Microscope
*Sales area: All areas excluding North America

So you are talking about using IMS not only at an earlier stage
in drug discovery than ARG, but also after entering the clinical
phase. I remember that in one of your lectures you said that, for
biomarker research, the fluctuation results for biomarkers in the
clinical phase would lead to the possibility of finding the next
target. I was very impressed when I heard that.
Finally, do you have any opinions or hopes regarding the
analytical instruments industry as a whole?

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