Kohzoh Imai

Imai discovered three kinds of protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTP) genes which control the signal transduction of cancer cells.^[3][4] His research on treatment with siRNA targeting PRDM14 molecules expressed in cancer cells is soon to be clinically applied to patients in Japan.^[5][6] Further, he developed a method to diagnose colorectal cancer utilizing a methylation of genes expressed in cancer cells.^[7]

Imai was born in Hakodate, Hokkaido in 1948. After receiving an M.D. from Sapporo Medical University in 1972, he started his career at the Department of Internal Medicine (Division I) under the supervision of Professor Takeo Wada. He obtained his PhD from Sapporo Medical University in 1976. He worked at The Scripps Research Institute under the supervision of Prof. Ralph A. Reisfeld and Prof. Soldano Ferrone as an NIH post-doctoral research fellow from 1978 to 1981. Upon returning to Japan, he returned to Sapporo Medical University as a lecturer, where he was later promoted to a full professor in 1994. During this period, he had been to the United Kingdom to study under Nobel Laureate César Milstein at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in 1985. He was appointed as the 9th chairperson of Sapporo Medical University in 2004 and later the first president when it was restructured into a prefectural university corporation. Currently, he is a professor and the director of the research hospital at the University of Tokyo's Institute of Medical Science, as well as the director of Center for Antibody and Vaccine Therapy, the head of the Medical Innovation Promotion Office, and the director of Kanagawa Cancer Center Research Institute.^{[citation needed]}

• Toyota M; Imai K; et al. (2003). "Epigenetic inactivation of CHFR in human tumors". Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 100 (13): 7818–7823. Bibcode:2003PNAS..100.7818T. doi:10.1073/pnas.1337066100. PMC 164671. PMID 12810945.
• Takaoka A; Imai K; et al. (2003). "Integration of interferon-α/β signalling to p53 responses in tumor suppression and antiviral defence". Nature. 424 (6948): 516–523. Bibcode:2003Natur.424..516T. doi:10.1038/nature01850. PMID 12872134.
• Suzuki H; Imai K; et al. (2004). "Epigenetic inactivation of SFRP genes allows constitutive WNT signaling in colorectal cancer". Nature Genetics. 36 (4): 417–422. doi:10.1038/ng1330. PMID 15034581.
• Imai K, Takaoka A (2006). "Comparing antibody and small-molecule therapies for cancer". Nat. Rev. Cancer. 6 (9): 714–27. doi:10.1038/nrc1913. PMID 16929325. S2CID 19170671.
• Suzuki H; Imai K; et al. (2011). "Genome-wide profiling of chromatin signatures reveals epigenetic regulation of microRNA genes in colorectal cancer". Cancer Res. 71 (17): 5646–58. doi:10.1158/0008-5472.can-11-1076. PMID 21734013. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2015-03-26.