奈良先端科学技術大学院大学 物質創成科学領域

Division of Materials Science NARA Institute of Science and Technology

Functional Polymer Science Laboratory

Staff & Contact

Educational Staff Adjunct Prof. Takahiro Honda ,Komei Okabe
Adjunct Associate Prof. Kazuhiro Kudo
Contact TEL: +81-743-72-6145
URL http://mswebs.naist.jp/LABs/santen/kinohome/framepage1.html

Education and Research Activities in the Laboratory

1. Educational Purposes

We cultivate human resources with the ability to identify and solve research challenges, as well as those who can contribute to society through research activities in drug discovery based on synthetic organic chemistry. We provide research and education aiming to develop human resources who dream of performing skilled manufacturing and spare no effort in achieving their dreams. Thus, we place emphasis on the understanding of research backgrounds and positioning, experimental design and techniques, result analysis, discussion, and how to derive conclusions.

2. Guiding Principle

We provide guidance to students so that they can acquire the basic experimental capabilities to obtain correct and reliable data and, at the same time, give consideration to safety and health during actual chemical experiments.

Research Theme

New Drug Delivery System Project

The Functional Polymer Science Laboratory, a collaboration course between Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and Nara Institute of Science and Technology, has been conducting research activity since April 2005. Our current main research focus is on new drug delivery systems (DDS) for the treatment of various eye diseases. Within ocular DDS development there are many challenging subjects for pharmaceutical and ophthalmologic sciences remaining, such as improvement of intraocular migration and intraocular sustainability of drugs. DDS for the eye are categorized into two main segments, anterior and posterior chambers (Fig. 1 & 2). Now especially, sustained-release type DDS using inactive ingredients, such as an ascorbic acid ester derivative, are being studied to treat diseases of the posterior chamber of the eye (Fig. 3).

Fig. 1 DDS for eye disease (anterior chamber)
Fig. 2 DDS for eye disease (posterior chamber)
Fig. 3 Injectable gel for DDS using ascorbic acid ester derivative and its SEM image

Recent Research Papers and Achievements

  1. T. Honda, et al. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 18, 2939 (2008).
  2. T. Honda, et al. Bioorg. Med. Chem. 17, 699 (2009).
  3. H. Tajima, et al. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 20, 7234 (2010).
  4. H. Tajima, et al. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 21, 1232 (2011).
  5. T. Honda, et al. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 21, 1782 (2011).
  6. N. Kojima, et al.: Development of a novel in situ depot system using low molecular weight gelators. General Oral Presentation (27R-pm04), The 135th Annual Meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan in Kobe (March, 2015).
  7. Y. Oyama, et al.: Possibility study of an ocular drug delivery system with using cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs). General Oral Presentation (27W-am07S), The 138th Annual Meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan in Kanazawa (March, 2018).