Neurosurgeons and Computers |
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Tetsuya Shiraishi M.D., Ph.D.
(Systems Biology)
Researcher
Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.
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Before I joined CSL in April 2004, I worked as a neurosurgeon at
Saga Medical School (which is now the Faculty of Medicine, Saga
University), both treating patients and carrying out research on brain
tumors. Previously in cancer research, researchers would focus on just
a few of the over 20,000 human genes and analyze just those genes.
They didn't know how the gene being studied related to the adjacent
genes. Just as I came to think that we would never get an overall
understanding of cancer with this fragmented research, Hiroaki
Kitano wrote a book called “Systems Biology”, and I immediately saw
his approach as being a superb idea.
I first met Dr. Kitano in 2001, when the Japan Brain Cancer
Conference was held in Beppu and he was invited to give a special
lecture. It was due to this relationship that I joined CSL. Although
Tadataka Ino (1745 to 1815) coined the phrase “a human life has two
mountains”, I wanted my second career to be dedicated to research.
My work changed completely. Although in my previous work I
performed surgeries and saw outpatients, now I spend the whole day
typing at a computer. At first, I found this disconcerting, but now I
really enjoy working with the latest computers.
Cancer behaves as a new life form that is born from within one. Even
in its extremely harsh environment, which, like the deep sea, has a
high pressure and is lacking in oxygen, cancer evolves while rebuilding
it’s system. To understand this system, I introduced the concept of
“molecular switch”. This is the same idea as flash memory. In flash
memory, after a pattern of on and off states is recorded, that pattern
remains even if the power supply is turned off. Cancer is the same.
I think that cancer multiplies by transmitting this on and off state
pattern acquired by evolution, even if the “power supply” is turned off
at the moment of cell division.
By analyzing several million related articles using the text mining
technique, I have already been able to extract 6600 molecular switches.
I would not have been able to make it this far if I had not come to
CSL, where I can always make full use of the latest computers. I think
that I will be able to explicate the role of these switches this year. In
the future, this will be useful in the sort of diagnosis that predicts that
a particular cancer will metastasize because it has a certain switch
pattern. I also hope that it will be possible to weaken a specific cancer
by switching a particular switch with a particular timing. This is
similar to the way the black pieces flip to white in Othello. |
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 Applying 21st Century Methodologies
to 21st Century Problems |
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See
all articles with figures and tables.  |
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Vol.54 |
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