Greeting

The 7th COINS Symposium will be held online on Friday, December 4, 2020.
The Center of Open Innovation Network for Smart Health (COINS) project, which started with the Innovation Center of NanoMedicine (iCONM) in Kawasaki City as its core, has entered the final phase. It is moving toward the realization of a smart life care society in 2045 based on the “in-body hospitals” concept. Significantly, we are steadily producing results that lead to social implementation.

The theme of this symposium is “Future Medicines”. COVID-19 has forced a major change in our society. However, we take it as an opportunity to think about the future medicine.
The COINS' vision is the advent of the "Society where people will be autonomously healthy at anytime, anywhere and anyone", and this is exactly the future medicine required in the post-corona era.

This symposium consists of lectures on future society and medicines, research reports of COINS “in-body hospitals” concept, and audience participation type roundtable discussion. We hope to offer as many people as possible the opportunity to envision future medicines from the discussion.
We look forward to welcoming you all to the 7th COINS Symposium.

 

Based on the concept of “in-body hospitals”, COINS is working on research and development of a dream-like smart nanomachines that patrol around the body 24 hours a day, detect signs of a disease, treat the disease and immediately communicate the information outside body.

The starting point of our research was the invention of nanomicelles, in which molecules automatically associate and deliver drugs, etc. to the expected site and perform their functions.

With this groundbreaking idea, we were able to develop a drug administration method that surpassed conventional methods in terms of both drug efficacy and safety.
Currently, we are conducting research on technologies for breaking through various barriers in the body and methods for controlling functions with signals from the outside, and some projects are advancing to clinical development.

In this symposium, each of the four COINS scientists will introduce a part of their research and development aiming for the future prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, brain diseases, diabetes, and cancers in a comprehensive way.

I would be delighted if everyone will embrace the challenge of future medicine conducted in Kawasaki through this symposium.

Part 1: Keynote Session

COINS(Center of Open Innovation Network for Smart Health) is engaged in research and development of “in-body hospitals”, which integrates all medical functions within the body. We aim to realize an autonomous health society that is smart life care society by liberating anyone, anywhere and anytime from diseases with smart nanomachines of a virus size will autonomously patrol the microenvironments in the body and provide diagnostic and therapeutic services 24 hours a day.
The theme of the 7th COINS Symposium is "Future Medicines". How is the future society going to be? What kind of research are scientists advancing toward that future?

For the Keynote Sessions, we will welcome two distinguished speakers to introduce the future society and medicines based on the latest trends.

Part 2: Summary of COINS R&D～ Future medicines are coming soon

COINS has set six themes, mainly targeting intractable diseases such as cancer and dementia, development of DDS (drug delivery system) and diagnostic devices using nanobiotechnology, as well as vaccine development against new coronavirus, while aiming to realize “in-body hospitals”. Each theme is as follows.

Theme 1: Development of nanomachines that can target and eliminate intractable cancer.
Theme 2: Innovative technology for the treatment of central nervous system diseases.
Theme 3: Development of nanomachines that carry messenger RNA (mRNA) for tissue reconstruction and vaccination.
Theme 4: The system for in-home cancer diagnosis, which requires no blood sampling.
Theme 5: Ultra-minimal invasive treatment through the development of a theranostic system that combines nanomachines and medical equipment.
Theme 6: Social system for implementation of the results into society.
*Click here for the details of each research theme.

In this session, Kazunori Kataoka, Research Leader of COINS, will give an overview of COINS research and development. Then, four scientists will introduce their latest COINS research results that lead to methods and treatments in each disease area of <infectious diseases> <brain diseases> <diabetes> <cancers>.

Part 3: Let's Think of Future Medicines Together

What kind of future medicines do you hope from the standpoints of medical doctors, patients, and scientists?
Diagnosis and treatment methods without social burden and household-friendly healthcare systems. How to find good hospitals, and enhance clear communications with healthcare professionals?... How will science and technology change the healthcare delivery of the future?
In Part Three, along with extracting the current issues and talking about what are needed to solve them. We are also planning to have audiences to participate in the sessions using the voting function to hear the audiences' opinions. Let’s think about what the ideal future medicines together.