Messeage from Prof. Kotake

Welcome to the homepage of the Department of Neurochemistry and Environmental Health Sciences

As a successor to Prof. Ohta, I have been in charge of the Laboratory of the “Department of Neurochemistry and Environmental Health Sciences” since this April 2018, which belongs to the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hiroshima University. We examine the mechanisms underlying the toxicity of chemicals in the environment, develop methods to screen chemicals, explore toxicological makers, study the effects of the concentrations of environmental chemicals and their involvement in the onset of Parkinson's disease, and evaluate drug metabolism and the related toxicity of chemicals, including pharmaceuticals. It is known that there are one-hundred million classified chemicals and that there are hundreds of thousands present in our surroundings. However, the toxicities of the majority of these chemicals are still unclear, and some of them could be hazardous and cause various diseases.
Through these research projects as below, we will train pharmaceutical researchers who think in a scientific manner. We hope to contribute to the development of the next generation of human resources who can work in a variety of fields as well as research.
Please contact us if you would like to join as a graduate student in our research team.

Staff

Professor, Yaichiro KOTAKE Ph.D
Reserch field; Neurotoxicology, Environmental and Health Sciences

Assistant Professor, Seigo SANOH Ph.D
Reserch field; Drug Metabolism and its related toxicity, Environmental and Health Sciences

Students

<Doctor course>
Kanae UMEDA, Naoki TAKAOKA, Yuya OHTSUKI (+Three working students)

<Master course>
Maho KATO, Naohiro KIDOGUCHI, Kazuki TAKEDA, Yuki TAKEHARA, Erika MORITA, Ayaka YABUKI, Haruka YUNO

<Undergraduate>
Chizuru IMAKO, Takafumi NISHIO, Soki ISHITANI, Natsumi OKADA, Yuki KAKEDA, Shunichi HATAMIYA, Momoka MARUMOTO
Katsunobu UTSUMI, Yusuke KOJIMA, Saya TAKAO, Misaki HATANO

Research Fellowship for Young Scientists for JSPS

Masatsugu MIYARA Ph.D

Keishi ISHIDA Ph.D

Research Projects

(1) Elucidation of the neurotoxicity mechanism of chemicals in the environment and exploration of toxicological makers
-Investigation of the mechanism underlying the toxicity of tributyltin via the AMPA receptor GluR2 and construction of a screening system.

(2) Cellular biochemical studies of the toxic chemicals involved in the onset of Parkinson’s disease
-Investigation of the mechanism underlying the toxicity of Parkinsonian neurotoxins (e.g., MPP⁺ and rotenone) by focusing on the function of organelles (e.g., lysosomes and mitochondria).

(3) Drug metabolism, toxicity of chemicals, including pharmaceuticals, and their prediction in humans
-Evaluation of the predictability of drug metabolism using chimeric mice with humanized liver and three-dimensional cell culture, and investigation of the contribution of drug metabolism to toxicity.
-Investigation of the regulation and function of P450 and aldehyde oxidase expression.

(4) Toxicity and metabolism of designer drugs
-While focusing on the chemical structures of designer drugs, we propose to investigate their toxicity mechanism in the brain and their disposition (distribution and metabolism).