Professor Kazunori Kataoka, Graduate Schools of Engineering and Medicine, awarded the 9th Leo Esaki Prize
Awards ceremony was held on October 17, 2012.The Science and Technology Promotion Foundation of Ibaraki (headed by Leo Esaki) announced that the 9th Leo Esaki Prize was awarded to Professor Kazunori Kataoka, Graduate Schools of Engineering / Medicine, the University of Tokyo. This award is presented to support remarkable international scholarly research in the field of nanotechnology. The awards ceremony for this Leo Esaki Prize will be held in October 2012 in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.
Professor Kataoka received the Leo Esaki Prize for his work in gDevelopment of drug / gene carriers using polymeric nanostructures and the evolution to targeting therapy for refractory diseases.h Professor Kataoka created virus-sized (tens of nanometer) drug carriers (polymer micelles) by integrating finely synthesized polymeric materials which led to the successful targeted treatment of refractory solid cancer.
Currently, international clinical studies for polymer micelle formations incorporating four different anti-cancer drugs are underway with the expectation of a major breakthrough in targeting the treatment of refractory cancer, including pancreatic cancer. Furthermore, Prof. Kataoka demonstrated the usefulness of polymer carriers for gene or oligonucleotide delivery. Most certainly, he has blazed a trail to a new frontier in pharmaceutical sciences and healthcare using nano-technology in organic chemistry.