13th meeting

13th Meeting

Date: May 12, 2017

Place: Tokyo Waterfront, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

Program:

[Lectures]

1. High-level production and application for household detergents of yeast-based surfactant “Sophorolipid”

Yoshihiko Hirata (Saraya Co., Ltd.)

2. Natural product drug discovery, toward resurrection before inscription as UNESCO World Heritage

Toru Okuda （President & CEO, HyphaGenesis, Inc.、Visiting Scientist, Botanical Gardens, Graduate School of Science, the University of Tokyo）

It has been long since withdrawals of natural product drug discovery (NPDD) by world-wide major pharmaceutical industry. Antibody drugs are in full bloom now and bright futures of regeneration drugs are awaited, however, I do not like the directions everybody seeks. HyphaGenesis, Inc. is probably the only company involved in the most upstream stages of this niche field in Japan. The company is therefore not profitable. Convention on Biological Diversity was signed in 1992. Japan will soon ratify Nagoya Protocol 2010 that entered into force in 2014, and the new patent policy on natural products by US Patent Office are challenging NPDD. I would thus like to discuss key issues and several tips for possible success in the earlier stages of NPDD for the scientists who are interested in this field. Strategies and results by HyphaGenesis will also be presented.

[MINCY salon]