New Tide of Natural Product Chemistry

Hayato Ishikawa received his Bachelor’s degree in Pharmaceutical Science from the Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Science in 1999. He received a Ph.D. degree from the Chiba University under the supervision of Professor Hiromitsu Takayama and Professor Norio Aimi in 2004. After postdoctoral work (2004–2006) with Professor Dale L. Boger in The Scripps Research Institute, he was promoted to the rank of assistant professor at the same institute (2006–2007). In 2007, he moved to the Tokyo University of Science as assistant professor. In 2011, he moved to the Kumamoto University and was promoted to associate professor. And he promoted to full professor at Kumamoto University in 2018. He joined the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chiba University in 2021 as full professor. He is a recipient of the Incentive Award in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan (2013), Thieme Chemistry Journal Award (2013), and Chemist Award BCA from MSD Life Science Foundation (2016). His research focuses onthe natural product chemistry including isolation, structure elucidation and total synthesis. Hiromitsu Takayama received his Bachelor’s degree in Pharmaceutical Science from Chiba University in 1977 and his PhD from the same university in 1982. After completing postdoctoral work (1982–1984) with Professor Ekkehard Winterfeldt (Hannover University, Germany) courtesy of the financial support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, he joined the research group at Toyama Medical and Pharmaceutical University as a research associate. He joined the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chiba University in 1986, and was promoted to associate professor in 1994 and to full professor at Chiba University Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2004. He has been an emeritus Professor at Chiba University since 2020. He is a recipient of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan Award for Divisional Scientific Promotions (2004), The Japanese Society of Pharmacognosy Award (2015), andThe Pharmaceutical Society of Japan Award (2018). His research interests include the survey, total synthesis, and medicinal chemistry of biologically active natural products.

Exploring Novel Bioactive Natural Products and Uncovering Life Phenomena with Natural Products.- Synthetic Biology-based Natural Product Discovery.- Sarco/Endoplasmic Reticulum Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA) Inhibitors Isolated from Subtropical Marine Cyanobacteria in Japan.- Marine Natural Products Targeting Tumor Microenvironment.- Chemical Biology Studies on Aplyronine A, A PPI-inducing Antitumor Macrolide from Sea Hare.- Chemical Synthesis and Immunological Functions of Bacterial Lipid A for Vaccine Adjuvant Development and Bacterial-Host Chemical Ecology Research.- Uncovering Biosynthesis of Natural Products.- Dissecting Biosynthesis of Natural Products Toward Drug Discovery.- A New Trend in Biosynthetic Studies of Natural Products: The Bridge between the Amino Acid Sequence Data and the Chemical Structure.- Biosynthesis of beta-Amino Acid-containing Macrolactam Polyketides.- Total Synthesis of Complex Natural Products by Innovative Strategies.- Synthetic Approach Toward the Structural Elucidation of Marine Natural Product Symbiodinolide.- Collective Synthesis of Monoterpenoid Indole Alkaloids Using Bioinspired Strategies.- Total Syntheses of Bioactive Oxacyclic Natural Products.- Total Syntheses of Densely Oxygenated Natural Products by Radical-based Decarbonylative Convergent Assembly.- Nucleophilic Addition to Amides Toward Efficient Total Synthesis of Complex Alkaloids.- Equilibrium-controlled Stereoselective Sequential Cyclizations Enabled Concise Total Synthesis of Complex Indole Alkaloid, Tronocarpine.- New Approach for Drug Discovery using Natural Products.- High-throughput Searches for Natural Products as Aggregation Modulators of Amyloidogenic Proteins.- Discovery of Natural Product Analogues with Altered Activities by a High throughput Strategy.- Development of Novel Ligands that Modulate Innate-like T Cells.