From the developer/
support message
About the developer (Mr. Kobayashi)
Mr. Hisataka Kobayashi
(Photoimmunotherapy developer)
≪Profile≫
Principal Investigator, Molecular Imaging Program, NIH/NCI (National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute)
Kansai Medical University Special Professor
Director, Photoimmunology Research Institute
Born in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture in 1961. He currently works as a Principal Investigator in the Molecular Imaging Program at the NIH/NCI (National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute). He graduated from Kyoto University School of Medicine in 1987, majored in nuclear medicine at Kyoto University Graduate School of Internal Medicine in 1995, and received his doctorate in medicine. In the same year he moved to the United States and became a fellow at the NIH Clinical Research Center. He returned to Japan in 1998 and worked as an assistant at the Kyoto University School of Medicine, before returning to the United States in 2001 to work as a senior fellow at the NIH's NCI, before assuming his current position in 2005. In 2011, his paper on photoimmunotherapy was published in the American medical journal Nature Medicine. For his research and development of photoimmunotherapy, he received the NIH Director's Award in 2014 and the NCI Director's Individual Commendation in 2017. He has received five other NIH Tech Transfer Awards.
Support message
In implementing this project, we received a lot of feedback from many doctors and trainees who are involved in cancer treatment across the country.
We have received messages of support, so we would like to introduce them here.
≪Support message≫
I met Dr. Hisataka Kobayashi, the developer of photoimmunotherapy, on April 22, 2013 at the Rakuten President's Office. I was one of your father's team of doctors and was in charge of multidisciplinary treatment from Mr. Mikitani. Dr. Kobayashi's presentation began while I was wondering what kind of "amazing cancer treatment that is being developed in America" that I heard from Mr. Mikitani. As it progressed, a shock ran through me. "There are such beautiful treatments out there," he said. And it was the treatment I had been seeking for many years. Nanodynamite (tiny dynamite), which only sticks to cancer cells, is injected into the tumor, and just the same weak light as a remote control is applied to the tumor, destroying only the cancer cells. I had been using various cancer treatments, but I was instantly fascinated by this treatment that surpassed all of them.
The patient, who was on hospice because there was no other treatment, went into complete remission. I was surprised and wondered, ``How effective is it?'' The tumor that had protruded to the surface of my face retracted, and I said, ``I've even grown a beard.''
Mr. Kobayashi shows the photo. It's quite messy.
Photoimmunotherapy is a treatment that provides a ``light of hope'' to patients who can be cured of any cancer type or stage. We hope that research will progress and spread the word, and that many patients around the world will be saved.