image: Professor Kazunori Kataoka, Center Director of iCONM
Credit: iCONM
Clarivate, a global information service provider in the U.K., annually releases a list of highly cited researchers based on the company's proprietary data analysis of the authors of academic papers published in the past 10 years that rank in the top 1% in terms of the number of citations. This year, 6,849 researchers from 67 countries were listed and released as of November 15, 2023. We are pleased to report that Prof. Kazunori Kataoka, Director of the Center for Nano-Medical Innovation (iCONM), Kawasaki City Foundation for Industrial Advancement, has been recognized as a "Highly Cited Researcher" for seven consecutive years since 2017, for a total of eight times (Note 1).
Prof. Kataoka received his PhD from the Graduate School of Engineering, University of Tokyo in 1979, and then joined the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Tokyo Women's Medical University as an assistant professor. He was strongly influenced by a movie he saw when he was a high school student, "Fantastic Voyage" in which he investigated what kind of material should be used to prevent the carriers (nanomachines) that carry drugs from being destroyed by the immune system, and a unique structure consisting of water-soluble polyethylene glycol (PEG) and hydrophobic poly-amino acid (PAA) was developed. Since neither is recognized by the immune system as a foreign substance in vivo, they do not cause an immune reaction even if they form a self-assembled micelle structure in water. In the late 1980s, the anti-cancer effect was demonstrated by administering anti-cancer drugs bound to PAA chains to cancer-carrying mice. In the early 1990s, he already started to work on the delivery of nucleic acid molecules such as DNA/RNA, which is linked to today's vaccine technology. Focusing on the negative electric charge of nucleic acid molecules, he used basic amino acids with positive electric charge in the PAA part, and his unique delivery method using electrostatic force attracted worldwide attention, in the field of Gene Delivery (nucleic acid delivery). Clarivate explained that this was a major driving force for the company to receive the Clarivate Citation Laureate (Note 2). In May of this year, Research.com (Note 3), a prominent academic platform for scientists, announced its ranking of scientists for the year 2023, and Prof. Kataoka was ranked 42nd in the world and 1st in Japan in the area of chemistry.
The research and development of DDS (nano-DDS) using polymeric nanostructures, which began with the pioneering work of Prof. Kataoka, has now expanded to research groups around the world and is being developed into a system for transporting various drugs, including diagnostic agents, proteins, nucleic acid drugs, mRNA, and genes into the body and making them function properly.
Note 1: Clarivate Reveals World’s Influential Researchers in Highly Cited Researchers 2023 List - Clarivate
Note 2: Clarivate Unveils Citation Laureates 2023 – Annual List of Researchers of Nobel Class - Clarivate
Note 3: Kazunori Kataoka: H-index & Awards - Academic Profile | Research.com
Prof. Dr. Kazunori Kataoka
Center Director, Innovation Center of NanoMedicine
Vice Chairperson, Kawasaki Institute of Industrial Promotion
Emeritus Professor, University of Tokyo
Over the past 40 years, he has made numerous achievements in the field of biomaterials, particularly in the areas of drug delivery/drug targeting, non-viral gene vectors, and nanomedicine, and has published over 700 peer-reviewed papers, which have been cited over 69,000 times in Clarivate's analysis The company has published more than 700 peer-reviewed papers and has been cited more than 69,000 times in Clarivate analyses (h-index is 139). He has over 600 patents and has been involved in the formation of five start-up companies. Major awards include the American Society for Biomaterials (Clemson Award) (2004), the American Society for Controlled Release (Founder's Award) (2006), the NIMS Award (2009), and the Humboldt Award (2012), Leona Esaki Award (2012), Prince Takamatsu Cancer Research Fund Academic Award (2017), Biomaterials Global Impact Award (2023), Mukai Award (2023), and many others. He has been elected to the Japanese Academy of Engineering (2011), American Academy of Engineering (2017), American Academy of Inventors (2017). Currently at iCONM, under the direction of Director Kataoka, research on nanomachines, a further evolution of nanoDDS, and the development of nanomedical technologies that can be used at home are underway, and 10 start-up companies have been established in the last few years with the aim of realizing the "In-body Hospitals" of the future.