Masanori Aikawa - Harvard Medical School

Pro-inflammatory activation of macrophages contributes to vascular diseases; however, its underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood.  Despite the availability of potent drugs for modifiable risks, vascular diseases remain global health threats.  To challenge residual risk, our group explores novel mechanisms for macrophage activation as an important first stride towards the development of new therapies.  The scientific community now recognizes that, because complex mechanisms of human diseases involve intertwined crosstalk among many molecules and pathways, understanding individual and collective contributions of components to macrophage activation is critical.  While many potential targets have been proposed by others and us, seemingly promising candidates that are established by a conventional reductionist approach may thus ultimately fail.  We indeed face low success rates of the clinical development of new drugs after lengthy preclinical efforts for identifying and validating new targets.  To facilitate the discovery process and improve success rates, our group uses a systems approach, involving multi-omics, computational prediction via network analysis, and artificial intelligence.  My lecture will showcase novel targets for macrophage activation we have identified through such a strategy.