2024.01.26 Fri

【2/1 18:00- Online seminar (free)】 Thinking about social implementation of autophagy research on a global scale

We are pleased to announce that we will hold a free Autophagy Online Seminar, “Global Implementation of Autophagy Research in Society,” on Thursday, February 1, 2024.

Autophagy is an in vivo “autophagy”, a mechanism in the body that breaks down proteins and other substances in cells by itself and recycles them. Autophagy has been recognized to be involved in beauty and health, including aging and immunity, and is attracting attention.

Japan has been leading the world in autophagy research, with Professor Yoshinori Osumi of Tokyo Institute of Technology winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2016, and Professor Tamotsu Yoshimori of Osaka University and his colleagues gaining a detailed understanding of its mechanism.

In recent years, autophagy activity has been found in spermidine, resveratrol, catechin, astaxanthin, heparin analogues used as skincare ingredients, glycyrrhizic acid and its salts, and other substances contained in food products, which are incorporated into products that promote health. These products have been incorporated into products that contribute to health promotion.

Against this background, the Autophagy Consortium of Japan is working to return the results of autophagy research to society and to promote the use of autophagy in society based on scientific evidence.

In particular, we believe it is important to ensure that the term autophagy does not stand alone due to wrong understanding or convenient interpretation, and have been working on the formulation of guidelines such as standardization of evaluation methods for autophagy activity, and released draft guidelines for autophagy labeling in February 2023.

In this seminar, we will actively utilize these guidelines and go beyond the framework of drugs, foods for specified health uses, and foods with functional claims, which claim efficacy, to focus on “functions to maintain homeostasis in the body to live life to the fullest,” and discuss their social implementation on a global scale.

Click here to register for the seminar (you need to register for a LVNS ID)

Date and time:

February 1, 2024 (Thursday) 18:00-19:30 (Japan time)

February 1, 2024 (Thursday) 09:00-10:30 (UK time)

Format: Online

Organizer: Autophagy Consortium of Japan

Participation fee: Free of charge

Target: Companies and researchers interested in autophagy phenomena in health food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, etc.

Speakers:

Moderator: Ryuta Takeda ,Director, Center for National Policy Research, Leave a Nest Co., Ltd.

Panel: Leslie Kenny, Oxford Healthspan, Ltd.　

Panel: Kengo Suzuki、 Co-Founder and Executive Fellow、 Euglena Co., Ltd.

Panel: Sovan Sarkar, University of Birmingham

	Dr Ryuta Takeda ,Director, Center for National Policy Research, Leave a Nest Co., Ltd. Ryuta Takeda received Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, and trained as a pure scientist in a biotech field. After joining Leave a Nest, he initiated the ASEAN largest Deeptech entrepreneur platform “TECH PLANTER” in Japan, and managed to spread it to 10 countries to explore Deep Tech to match Deep Issues. In USA, from 2016-2019, he held TECH PLANTER in Silicon Valley and Boston. As well as managing international teams and businesses in Leave a Nest, he also developed a lot of international PoCs and collaborative researches between MNC and startup and different startups, so called international co-creation activities.
	Dr Sovan Sarkar, Birmingham Fellow, Group Leader, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom Dr Sarkar did his PhD from University of Cambridge (2002–2006) followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge (2007–2010) and Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2010–2014), after which he started his lab as a group leader at the University of Birmingham in 2015. His seminal contributions in the field of autophagy include the identification of mTOR-independent signalling pathways and small molecules for biomedical application in human diseases. His current research involves studying the homeostatic role, dysfunction and therapeutic manipulation of autophagy in human physiology and disease by utilizing human pluripotent stem cell based platforms.
	Ms Leslie Kenny, CEO, Oxford Healthspan. Leslie graduated in 1997 from Harvard Business School. After being diagnosed with multiple autoimmune diseases and being told she had 5 years left to live, she began research herself and used novel therapies to reverse her autoimmune condition. She has been in remission for 19 years. Leslie then retrained as a health coach in 2016 to help others on their own self-healing journeys. She then began fundraising for Oxford University regenerative biotech spinout companies in stem cells, stem cell expansion, lysosomal storage disorders and ketones in 2018 and launched Oxford Healthspan in 2020. She promotes the idea of incorporating ways to activate autophagy into daily life as an autoimmune patient advocate and as Co-Founder of the non-profit, Oxford Longevity Project, which holds webinars and conferences for the public on how to incorporate breakthrough science, especially autophagy, into daily life.
	Dr Kengo Ssuzuki, Co-Founder and Executive Fellow, Euglena Co., Ltd. While a master's student at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences in 2005, he helped found Euglena Co. D. degree in Agriculture in 2016, and a Ph. He is a team leader of the Microalgae Production Control Technology Research Team at RIKEN, a visiting professor at the Malaysian-Japanese International Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, and a specially appointed (visiting) professor at Tohoku University's Graduate Program of Excellence in the Creation of Future-oriented Medicine. He is the author of “Dr. Green Beetle's Super Entrepreneurial Thinking” (Nikkei BP).