Research Support Office Research Advancement Division. Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
TEL | +81-42-367-5944 |
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Home > Tenured Faculties > Kaneda Masahiro
Kaneda Masahiro
Research experience | ・2003.10-2005.3: Post-doc. Division of Human Genetics, National Institute of Genetics, Japan |
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Educational background | ・2000: D.V.M. (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine) Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology, School of Veterinary Medicine |
Awards | (At Oct. 2017) |
Selected papers and publications | (At Oct. 2017) |
Since the birth of the first cloned animal, "Dolly" the shepp in 1996, somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) technology was widely used and lost of cloned animals were born including mice, cattle, pigs, dog, cats, rabbits and horses. SCNT can be used for a lot of fields as written in above, however, the low percentage of the birth rate (5-10%) was not yet completely solved. The reason is belived to be "epigenetics" erros. Epigenetics controls gene expression by not mutating DNA itself, but changing DNA methylation and hisotne modifications. So, I'm concentrating on epigenetic modifications in cloned cattle to improve cloning efficiency.
Another research topic now I'm starting is epigenetic aspects of cancers in small animals (dogs and cats). As the life time of dogs and cats are rapidly increasing in Japan, the same situation to human occurs in dogs and cats. That is cancer. In human, epigenetic error in cancer is important for diagnosis and treatment, however, little is known in dogs and cats. I would like to analyze cancer epigenetics in dogs and cats.
Tenure Track Program in TUAT is quite a good program to support young researchers for setting up their own laboratories. And the tenure position is already kept, it means that no need to compete with other tenure track researchres, just with myself. However, the laboratory space is restricted and not enough (and really depends on the situation of the departement we belong) and grant from JSPS is sometimes difficult to buy usual products like FAX machines.
Beef and milk products from cloned cattle are not yet sold in the market, because of low success rate and law comprehension of consumers. But SCNT technology is very useful to copy high quality cattle and to preserve endangered animals. And also for medical application, SCNT technology is a very powerful method to create genetically modified animals, including domestic animals. I would like to contribute to improve this technology all over the world from Japan.