Rate My Professor Yoshimasa Saito

Professor Yoshimasa Saito is a Professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacy at Keio University. His research focuses on biliary tract cancer and pancreatic cancer, which are representative refractory malignancies that are difficult to diagnose at an early stage, with current chemotherapy showing limited efficacy and resulting in a 5-year survival rate below 20%. He has successfully established and stably maintained patient-derived organoids from a variety of refractory and rare cancers, including intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, gallbladder cancer, pancreatic cancer, and neuroendocrine carcinoma arising from the ampulla of Vater. These organoids exhibit a high degree of histological and functional similarity to tumors in vivo and serve as powerful tools for biomarker discovery and evaluation of drug sensitivity.

Professor Saito integrates analyses of genomic alterations, prognosis, and therapeutic responses using real-world data with patient-derived tumor models to advance integrative oncology and precision oncology. This bidirectional approach identifies clinically relevant genetic alterations and biomarkers from large-scale data and validates them functionally in organoids, aiming to elucidate molecular mechanisms of refractory cancers and develop personalized therapeutic strategies. His specialties include pharmacotherapy, gastroenterology, molecular oncology, and precision oncology. In 2018, as Associate Professor, he received the Best Presentation Award at the 18th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Anti-Aging Medicine. He has authored numerous publications on topics such as epigenetics, microRNAs in gastrointestinal cancers, and organoid-based research for cancer therapy.

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