On 17th March 2026, Rika Mizunuma (B4), Department of Chemical System Engineering, received SCEJ 91st Annual Meeting Student Encouragement Award.
Rika Mizunuma on the far right of the front row
SCEJ 91st Annual Meeting Student Encouragement Award
SCEJ 91st Annual Meeting Student Encouragement Award
Among the student poster presentations, research content and presenters were comprehensively evaluated by a panel of judges from industry, academia, and government. This award was conferred upon selected presenters, representing within 5% of the total student participants, based on their overall evaluation scores.
About awarded research
In the pharmaceutical industry, "low-clearance compounds"—which are less susceptible to metabolism and maintain sustained blood concentrations—have recently garnered significant attention; however, because conventional in vitro culture systems exhibit insufficient expression and maintenance of hepatocyte functions, it has been remarkably difficult to accurately predict their metabolic behavior. A major factor in this functional decline within conventional in vitro systems was the challenge of insufficient oxygen supply to the cells compared to the in vivo environment, caused by oxygen diffusion limitation through the culture medium.
In this study, we worked on constructing a human hepatocyte culture system applying oxygen-permeable culture plates (InnoCell®) and long-term culture media, and demonstrated that an adequate oxygen supply can significantly improve the underestimation of drug metabolic capacity. The results of this research enable more accurate prediction of the metabolic behavior of low-clearance drugs, which were previously difficult to evaluate, and are expected to contribute to the acceleration of drug development.
Your impression & future plan
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Yasuyuki Sakai and Associate Professor Masaki Nishikawa, as well as all the members of our laboratory. I am also deeply grateful to our collaborative partners at the CIEA and Mitsui Chemicals, Inc. for their invaluable guidance and support throughout this research. This award serves as a great encouragement, and I am committed to further devoting myself to my research activities during my Master's program.
Masatake Yamazaki (M1), Department of Chemical System Engineering, received SCEJ 91st Annual Meeting, Excellent Student Award
Yuki Yamashita (B4) , Department of Chemical System Engineering, received SCEJ 90th Annual Meeting, Student Encouragement Award
