Research Aim

We aim to establish a novel and innovative treatment for allergic and inflammatory disease.

Located at the outermost layer of the body, epithelial cells are essential to producing a physical and chemical barrier to pathogens and antigens alike. However, this important barrier requires a complex support system which lies underneath the epithelial cells. “Mesenchymal cell/Structural cell”, traditionally known solely for their role in the production of the extracellular matrix and the support of epithelial cells, is one of these supporting cells.

Recently, our lab has found that these multifaceted cells are not merely just support cells, but are responsible for “peripheral education of immune cells” as well as “regulation of differenciation of epithelial cell and function of enteric nervous systm”. In addition, alterations in these structural cell function can lead to “organ dysfunction (e.g., fibrosis)”. We hope to further elucidate these complex functions and their relation to diseases to develop a deeper understanding of Structurall cells.

SCAI project is to uncover how Structural Cells Affect/Alter/Ameliorate Immunity/Inflammation/Infection.

If you are interested in SCAI project, we welcome you to take part in our research group. Our diverse and friendly group is composed of researchers from various backgrounds who all share a common enthusiasm for studying immunology. Our group carries out many exciting and innovative research projects while maintaining a productive and enjoyable atmosphere. We strongly encourage you to contact us if our research topics appeal to you.

We have also recently uncovered “host regulatory system (organ-axis) against pathogenic commensal bacteria” . We aim to elucidate and apply the regulatory mechanism for the regulation of pathogenic commensal bacteria mediated various inflammatory diseases.
If you are interested, we are looking forward to your application.

News & Topics

4/1
2023

"Please joint to our lab!". International students are always welcome to join our lab! (We had graduate students and research students from USA, China, South Korea). Also please see the pictures of Japanese homepage site as well

4/1
2023

New members Shimada-san, Sasa-san, and Ogata-san joined the Innovation Medicine Department.

4/1
2023

Presentation Zhang-san and Tanaka-san, graduate students, presented their research at the International Symposium for Future Mucosal Vaccines: Safeguards and Innovations against Infectious Diseases.

3/29
2023

Presented at the cSIMVA “Chiba University, Synergy Institute for Futuristic Mucosal Vaccine Research and Development“ Workshop at Kazusa Achademia Hall.

3/20
2023

Congratulations Celebrated the graduation of graduate student Pan with a Master's degree. Congratulations on your graduation!

3/18
2023

Presentation Presented at the SAMURAI Research Meeting at Sumitomo Pharma Co., Ltd.

3/17
2023

Congratulations Research student Zhang passed both the “All Directional Innovation Creator Ph.D. Project and Innovative Medicine Chiba Doctoral WISE Program. Congratulations!

3/16
2023

Presentation Presented at the 100th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Physiological Society, Symposium "Understanding Chronic Inflammatory Diseases from a Metabolic Perspective" at the Kyoto International Conference Center.

3/6
2023

Meetings Visited by 10X Genomics Company for a courtesy call.

3/2
2023

Presentation Presented at the AMED Conferences on Adaptive/Restoration.

2/3
2023

Presentation Presented at the AMED Conference on Microflora.

1/10
2023

Researches Conducted a 3-day Scholarship experimental practice to evaluate the effects of immune cells by isolating bacteria from commercially available yogurt.

12/23
2023

Research Oversea Tanaka-san, a graduate student, returned from research training at UCSD. They visited Eli Lilly, Ferring, and Thermo Fisher and contributed an experience report to our university's home page.

12/14
2022

Fortune cookies "Your smile brings happiness to others". (@Panda Express, San Diego)

12/10
2022

International Collaboration Research collaboration @ UC San Diego (with Tanaka-san Master student).

12/7
2022

Conference

Japan Society of Immunology Conference @Kumamoto. Chairperson in Allergy session.

12/2
2022

LectureLecture about "Mucosal Immunity and commensal bacteria"@ Nara Medical University.

11/13
2022

Symposium Japanese Society of Pediatric Allergy and Clinical Immunology @Okinawa about "Successful life with the international collaboration and research".

11/11
2022

Presentation Danone Research Conference about "Commensal bacteria and Pathobionts".

11/8
2022

Presentation

Japanese Association for Food Immuology @Tokyo about "Mast cell and regulation of allergic diseases".

10/17
2022

Lecture @Faculty of Pharamacy about "Mucosal Immunology and commensal bacteria".

10/13
2022

AwardsResearch Awards "Chiba University Advanced Academic Awards"..

10/8
2022

Symposium@Japanese Society of Allergology about "Mast cell and food allergy".

9/8
2022

Fortune cookies

"You will find yourself at a happy crossroads" (@Panda Express, San Diego).

7/27
2022

Publications Zhang-san's paper has been accepted in Frontiers Immunology "Utilizing mast cells in a positive manner to overcome inflammatory and allergic diseases".

7/25
2022

International Collaboration Research collaboration @ UC San Diego.

7/5
2022

Movingfrom Univ Tokyo to Chiba Univ..

6/9
2022

International Collaboration Research collaboration @ UC San Diego.

6/3
2022

Presentation Japan Waxman Foundation about "Mucosal Fibrosis".

5/12
2022

Symposium

@Japan Society of Diabetology about "Gut-Pancreas Axis".

4/23
2022

International Collaboration Research collaboration @ UC San Diego.

4/8
2022

AwardsAwards from "The Chiba Medical Society".

4/1
2022

Publications

Eur J Immunol "Intestinal homeostasis and inflammation: Gut microbiota at the crossroads of pancreas-intestinal barrier axis".

3/25
2022

PublicationsAllergology international "Evaluation of adrenaline auto-injector prescription profiles: A population-based, retrospective cohort study within the National Insurance Claims Database of Japan".

2/20
2022

PublicationsAllergy "Research impact analysis of international funding agencies in the realm of allergy and immunology".

1/19
2022

Publications

Proc Natl Acad Sci USA "Intestinal commensal microbiota and cytokines regulate Fut2 + Paneth cells for gut defense"

08/15
2021

Publication Our review paper by Mr. Katori and Mr. Han has been published in Clinical Immunology & Allergology.

08/20
2021

Accouncement Our lab has been moved to Medical Building.

08/15
2021

Publication Our review paper by Mr. Katori and Mr. Han has been published in Clinical Immunology & Allergology.

08/5
2021

Collaboration Collaborative research has been continued (3rd year) with UCSD, San Diego, US.

07/9
2021

Fortune cookie “A good beginning is half the task” fortune cookie of Panda Express.

07/1
2021

Symposium at 15th World Immune Regulation Meeting.

06/25
2021

Publication Our review paper: Two Sides of the Coin: Mast Cells as a Key Regulator of Allergy and Acute/Chronic Inflammation, has been published in Cells.

04/19
2021

Accouncement Mrs Nakayama has joined our lab.

04/14
2021

Presentation at ASG-Keio The 49th Scienc-ome.

04/01
2021

Symposium Mr Zhang has joined our lab.

02/17
2021

Symposium Our original paper “Pancreatic glycoprotein 2 is a first line of defense for mucosal protection in intestinal inflammation” has been published to Nature Communications and press released.

10/20
2020

Publication Our original paper about the mechanism of oral immunotherapy for the treatment of food allergy has been published in Mucosal Immunology and press released.

10/10
2020

Publication Our original paper about novel technique for analyzing mesenchymal cells in gut has been accepted to Scientific Reports.

10/1
2020

Seminar at University of California San Diego about mucosal protection (San Diego, US).

08/01
2019

Grants Grant-in-Aid for Promotion of Joint International Research (Fostering Joint International Research（A)), for the collaboration with University of California San Diego, has been selected and collaboration has been started.

07/01
2019

Grants Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research, about skin immune-mesenchymal interactions, has been selected.

06/21
2019

Publication our research aim has been published in "IMPACT" https://doi.org/10.21820/23987073.2018.10.63

06/15
2019

Publication Kurashima Y et al., "Intrinsic Control of Surface Immune and Epithelial Homeostasis by Tissue-resient Gut Stromal Cells" in Front Immunology and Tokuhara D et al., "A Comprehensive Understanding of the Gut Mucosal Immune System in Allergic Inflammation" in Allergol Int have been published.

06/11
2019

Symposium at Francis Crick Institute about mucosal defense from accessory organs (London, UK).

05/11
2019

Presentation at IMMUNOLOGY 2019 (San Diego, US).

04/01
2019

Grants Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) as Principal Investigator from JSPS has been selected.

02/12
2019

Symposium 3rd Annual Symposium for the Center for Mucosal Immunology, Allergy and Vaccine Development (San Diego, US).

12/09
2018

Symposium the Japan Society of Mucosal Immunology about "Purinergic signaling of mast cells for symbiosis and eliminationi" (Fukuoka, Japan).

08/16
2018

Publication Inami A et al., "ATP as a Pathophysiologic Mediator of Bacteria-Host Crosstalk in the Gastrointestinal Tract" in International Journal of Molecular Scienses.

06/01
2018

Awards the Japan Bifidus Foundation Investigator Award from the Japan Bifidus Foundation (Tokyo, Japan).

03/20
2018

Foundation awarded by the Uehara Memorial Foundation, Kato Memorial Bioscience Foundation, the Naito Foundation.

02/22
2018

Research meeting at Univeristy of Calfornia San Diego.

2/22
2018

Publication Takemura N et al., Science Translational Medicine "Eosinophil depletion suppresses radiation-induced small intestinal fibrosis" has been published.

0/18
2018

Lecture at the University of Hiroshima (Hiroshima, Japan).

12/14
2017

Publication Takahashi Y et al., Stem Cell Reports "A Refined Culture System for Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Intestinal Epithelial Orgnoids" has been published.

12/14
2017

Presentation and Chair person at the 1st Advanced Technology for Immunology and Infectious Diseases and the Japanese Society for Immunology (Sendai, Japan).

11/1
2017

Foundation of the year from Glaxo Smith Kline Research Grant, Sumitomo Foundation, Uehara Memorial Foundation, Yakult Bio-Science Foundation, Daiichi Sankyo Scholarship.

08/10
2017

Publication of the first-half of the year
Kurashima Y., et al., Annual Review Immunology, 2017
Furuta Y. et al., PLoS ONE, 2017
Toyoshima S ., et al., Int.  Immunol., 2017
Shimokawa C ., et al., Immunity, 2017
Joo S ., et al., Mucosal Immunol., 2017
Takahashia Y ., et al., EioMedicine, 2017

07/21
2017

Presentation at NIH (Maryland, US).

07/20
2017

Presentation at International Congress of Mucosal Immunology (Washington DC, US).

07/4
2017

Presentation Seminar at Juntendo University School of Medicine.

07/4
2017

Presentation at Annual International Workshop on Mucosal Immunology and Vaccine for Young Investigators (Yamanashi, Japan).

07/1
2017

Grant-in-Aid for challenging Exploratory Research has been accepted (Research of fibrosis).

05/15
2017

Presentation at Korea-Japan joint meeting on mucosal immunology (Seoul, South Korea).

02/11
2017

Collaborative research article is now available. Furuta Y., Tsai S.H., Kinoshita M., Fujimoto K., Okumura R., Umemoto E., Kurashima Y. Kiyono H., Kayama H., Takeda K. (2017). E-NPP3 controls plasmacytoid dendritic cell numbers in the small intestine. PLoS ONE.

01/22
2017

Poster Award at the 19th Takeda Science Foundation Symposium on Bioscience.

01/20
2017

Collaborative research article is now available online. Toyoshima S., Wakamatsu E., Ishida, Y. Obata Y., Kurashima Y., Kiyono H., Abe R. (2017). The spleen is the site where mast cells are induced in the development of food allergy. Int. Immunol., doi: 10.1093/intimm/dxx005.

01/11
2017

Review is now available online. Kurashima Y., Kiyono H. (2017). Mucosal Ecological Network of Epithelium and Immune Cells for Gut Homeostasis and Tissue Healing. Annu Rev Immunol. doi: 10.1146/annurev-immunol-051116-052424.

12/07
2016

Research article is now available online. Joo S., Fukuyama Y., Park EJ., Yuki Y., Kurashima Y., Ouchida R., Ziegler SF., Kiyono H. (2016). Critical role of TSLP-responsive mucosal dendritic cells in the induction of nasal antigen-specific IgA response. Mucosal Immunol. doi: 10.1038/mi.2016.103.

12/09
2016

Presentation at the Joint Workshop of 2nd JST-SICORP Workshop & 6th Investigative Commission of Ortho – Organogenesis in Okinawa.

12/06
2016

Presentation at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Immunology in Okinawa.

12/01
2016

The Department of Innovative Medicine is launched at Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine and School of Medicine.

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