Researcher Spotlight: Makoto Iwasaki, MD, PhD

Massachusetts General Hospital
Harwood Family Scholar

Most cancer-related genetics research focuses on the small fraction of human DNA that harbors protein-encoding genes. However, most of the genome consists of much larger “non-coding” regions, which include a variety of
regulatory elements (or “switches”) that can turn on, turn off, or amplify gene expression. “We believe that broken or hijacked switches help drive peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) and that mapping them—together with how DNA folds in three dimensions inside a tumor cell—will reveal new vulnerabilities that we can target with drugs,” explains Dr. Iwasaki.

Dr. Iwasaki completed his graduate and medical training at Kyoto University. During his time as a clinical trainee in Japan, he cared for many patients with PTCL, particularly adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma and extranodal NK/Tcell lymphoma, which are unusually common in East Asia. “I watched too many patients exhaust their options too quickly with conventional chemotherapy and even with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation due to early and high rates of recurrence,” he says. “Most new drugs that had earned accelerated approval based on early-phase trials failed to deliver lasting benefit.”

“That gap between promise and reality stayed with me, and I came to believe that without a deeper understanding of what actually drives these diseases at the molecular level, we will keep meeting the same wall,” Dr. Iwasaki explains.
Using advanced, integrative technologies and computer modeling, he hopes that his research will serve to elucidate the molecular biological underpinnings that drive T-cell lymphomas, with the ultimate goal of translating those discoveries into improved therapies for lymphoma patients.