Hiroshi Fujiwara

Hiroshi Fujiwara, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor,
Department of Personalized Cancer Immunotherapy,
Mie University Graduate School of Medicine

Address

1577 Kurimamachiya-cho, Tsu, Mie 514-8507, Japan
Phone; +81-59-231-5187, Fax; +81-59-231-5276
Email: rieyunahiroshi@med.mie-u.ac.jp

Profiles and Research Field

Dr. Fujiwara is majoring hematology, oncology, immunology and allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from 1986. Clinically he also has been qualified as specialist of internal medicine, hematology, oncology and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. He had been a research associate at National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) / National Institute of Health (NIH) from 2001 to 2004 under the mentorship of Dr. John Barrett. He received Van Bekkum Award at the 37th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) in 2011 (entitled Engineered T-lymphocytes using a novel anti-leukemia antigen, Aurora-A kinase-specific T-cell receptor gene transfer successfully displayed anti-leukemia reactivity. Blood 2012 ) He has published more than 100 articles in this field, and has more than 2500 citations so far. He joined here from July 1st, 2018, and his research interest is currently focused on the development of anticancer adoptive immunotherapy using TCR/CAR gene-modified immune cells and related technological advancement.

Key words

  • Adoptive cellular immunotherapy against solid/hematological cancers
  • Comprehensive immunotherapy using gene-modified immune cells/ cancer vaccine
  • Allogeneic hematopoetic stem cell transplantation using HLA mismatched donors
    combined with immunotherapy
  • HTLV-1/CMV/EBV related diseases/ cancers

Selected Publications  (*; correspondence)

  1. Ohta R, Demachi-Okamura A, Akatsuka Y, Fujiwara H, Kuzushima K*. Improving TCR affinity on 293 T cells. J Immunol Methods. 466:1-8, 2019.
  2. Akahori Y, Wang L, Yoneyama M, Seo N, Okumura S, Miyahara Y, Amaishi Y, Okamoto S, Mineno J, Ikeda H, Maki T, Fujiwara H, Akatsuka Y, Kato T*, Shiku H*. Anti-tumor activity of CAR-T cells targeting the intracellular oncoprotein WT1 can be enhanced by vaccination. Blood. 132(11):1134-1145, 2018.
  3. Tawara I, Kageyama S*, Miyahara Y, Fujiwara H, Nishida T, Akatsuka A, Ikeda H, Tanimoto K, Terakura S, Murata M, Inaguma Y, Masuya M, Inoue N, Kidokoro T, Okamoto S, Tomura D, Chono H, Nukaya I, Mineno J, Naoe T, Emi N, Yasukawa M, Katayama N, Shiku H. Safety and persistence of WT1-specific T-cell receptor gene−transduced lymphocytes in patients with AML and MDS. Blood. 130(18):1985-1994, 2017.
  4. Ishida T*, Fujiwara H, Nosaka K, Taira N, Abe Y, Imaizumi Y, Moriuchi Y, Jo T, Ishizawa K, Tobinai K, Tsukasaki K, Ito S, Yoshimitsu M, Otsuka M, Ogura M, Shuichi Midorikawa S, Ruiz W, Ohtsu T. Multicenter Phase II Study of Lenalidomide in Relapsed or Recurrent Adult T-Cell Leukemia-Lymphoma: ATLL-002. J Clin Oncol, 34(34):4086-4093, 2016.
  5. Tanaka H, Fujiwara H*, Ochi F, Tanimoto K, Casey N, Okamoto S, Mineno J, Kuzushima K, Shiku H, Sugiyama T, Barrett J, Yasukawa M. Development of engineered T cells expressing a chimeric CD16-CD3 receptor to improve the clinical efficacy of mogamulizumab therapy against adult T cell leukemia. Clin Cancer Research. 22(17); 4405–16, 2016.
  6. Najima Y, Tomizawa-Murasawa M, Saito Y, Watanabe T, Ono R, Ochi T, Suzuki N, Fujiwara H, Ohara O, Shultz LD, Yasukawa M, Ishikawa F*. Induction of WT1 specific human CD8+ T cells from human HSCs in HLA class I Tg NOD/SCID/Il2rgKO mice. Blood, 127(6):722-34. 2016.
  7. Fujiwara H*, Ochi T, Ochi F, Miyazaki Y, Asai H, Narita M, Okamoto S, Mineno J, Kuzushima K, Shiku H, Yasukawa M. Antileukemia multifunctionality of CD4+ T cells genetically engineered by HLA class I-restricted and WT1-specific T-cell receptor gene transfer. Leukemia, 29(12):2393-401, 2015.
  8. Ochi T, Nakatsugawa M, Chamoto K, Tanaka S, Yamashita Y, Guo T, Fujiwara H, Yasukawa M, Butler M, Hirano N. Optimization of T-cell reactivity by exploiting TCR chain centricity for the purpose of safe and effective antitumor TCR gene therapy. Cancer Immunol Res, 3(9):1070-81, 2015.
  9. Ochi F, Fujiwara H*, Tanimoto K, Asai H, Miyazaki Y, Okamoto S, Mineno J, Kuzushima K, Shiku H, Barrett J, Ishii E, Yasukawa M. Gene-modified human α/β-T cells expressing a chimeric CD16-CD3ζ receptor as adoptively transferable effector cells for anticancer monoclonal antibody therapy. Cancer Immunol Res, 2(3):249-62, 2014.
  10. Miyazaki Y, Fujiwara H*, Asai H, Ochi F, Ochi T, Azuma T, Ishida T, Okamoto S, Mineno J, Kuzushima K, Shiku H, Yasukawa M: Development of a novel redirected T cell-based adoptive immunotherapy targeting human telomerase reverse transcriptase for adult T-cell leukemia. Blood, 121(24):4894-4901, 2013.
  11. Ishida T, Joh T, Uike N, Yamamoto K, Utsunomiya A, Yoshida S, Saburi Y, Miyamoto T, Takemoto S, Suzushima H, Tsukasaki K, Nosaka K, Fujiwara H, Ishitsuka K, Inagaki H, Ogura M, Akinaga S, Tomonaga M, Tobinai K, Ueda R*: Defucosylated Anti-CCR4 Monoclonal Antibody (KW-0761) for Relapsed Adult T-Cell Leukemia-Lymphoma: A Multicenter Phase II Study. J Clin Oncol. 30(8):837-842, 2012.
  12. Nagai K, Ochi T, Fujiwara H*, An J, Shirakata T, Mineno J, Kuzushima K, Shiku H, Melenhorst J, Gostic E, Price D.A., Ishii E, Yasukawa M*: Aurora kinase A-specific T-cell receptor gene transfer redirects T-lymphocytes to display effective anti-leukemia reactivity. Blood. 119(2):368-376, 2012.
  13. Ochi T, Fujiwara H*, Okamoto S, An J, Nagai K, Shirakata T, Mineno J, Kuzushima K, Shiku H, Yasukawa M*: Novel adoptive T-cell immunotherapy using a WT1-specific TCR vector encoding silencers for endogenous TCRs shows marked anti-leukemia reactivity and safety. Blood. 118(6):1495-1503, 2011.
  14. Shultz LD*, Saito Y, Najima Y, Tanaka S, Ochi T, Tomizawa M, Doi T, Sone A, Suzuki N, Fujiwara H, Yasukawa M, Ishikawa F: Generation of functional human T-cell subsets with HLA-restricted immune responses in HLA class I expressing NOD/SCID/IL2r gamma(null) humanized mice. Pro Nat Acad Sci U S A. 107(29):13022-13027, 2010.
  15. Okamoto S, Mineno J, Ikeda H, Fujiwara H, Yasukawa M, Shiku H*, Kato I:Improved expression and reactivity of transduced tumor-specific TCRs in human lymphocytes by specific silencing of endogenous TCR. Cancer Res. 69(23):9003-9011, 2009.
  16. Ochi T, Fujiwara H*, Suemori K, Azuma T, Yakushijin Y, Hato T, Kuzushima K, Yasukawa M: Aurora-A kinase: a novel target of cellular immunotherapy for leukemia. Blood. 113(1):66-74, 2009.
  17. Kozako T, Yoshimitsu M, Fujiwara H, Masamoto I, Horai S, White Y, Akimoto M, Suzuki S, Matsushita K, Uozumi K, Tei C, Arima N*: PD-1/PD-L1 expression in human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 carriers and adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma patients. Leukemia. 23(2):375-382, 2009
  18. Fujiwara H, Melenhorst JJ, El Ouriaghli F, Kajigaya S, Grube M, Sconocchia G, Rezvani K, Price DA, Hensel NF, Douek DC, Barrett AJ*:In vitro induction of myeloid leukemia-specific CD4 and CD8 T cells by CD40 ligand-activated B cells gene modified to express primary granule proteins. Clin Cancer Res 11(12); 4495-4503, 2005.
  19. Sconocchia G, Lau M, Provenzano M, Rezvani K, Wongsena W, Fujiwara H, Hensel N, Melenhorst J, Li J, Ferrone S, Barrett AJ*: The antileukemia effect of HLA-matched NK and NK-T cells in chronic myelogenous leukemia involves NKG2D-target-cell interactions. Blood. 106(10):3666-72, 2005.
  20. Fujiwara H, El Ouriaghli F, Grube M, Price DA, Rezvani K, Gostic E, Sconocchia G, Melenhorst J, Hensel N, Douek DC, Barrett AJ*: Identification and in vitro expansion of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells specific for human neutrophil elastase. Blood. 103(8):3076-3083, 2004.
  21. Rezvani K, Grube M, Brenchley JM, Sconocchia G, Fujiwara H, Price DA, Gostic E, Yamada K, Melenhorst J, Childs R, Hensel N, Douek DC, Barrett AJ*: Functional leukemia-associated antigen-specific memory CD8+ T cells exist in healthy individuals and in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia before and after stem cell transplantation. Blood. 102(8); 2892-2900, 2003.