Greeting

The 8th COINS Symposium will be held online on Friday, January 21, 2022. 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 reached its final year. I am delighted that we were able to produce many great results because of your support.　The "Society where everyone will be autonomously healthy at anytime, anywhere,"　based on COINS’ concept of “In-body Hospitals” is not a pipe dream, rather I feel it is within the reach! We have created a prototype of an "innovation ecosystem" in which different players from industry, academia and government are involved together. This collaboration has enabled constant innovation throughout this project. We are also proud that we could interact directly with the citizens through various initiatives such as symposium.

The theme of this symposium is “Future society created by In-body Hospitals”
In this symposium, we will present the outcome of COINS’ nine years, both in terms of research and development and the construction of an innovation platform. Moreover, through dialogue with high school students, we are facilitating a roundtable discussion on healthcare in a super-aging society. We hope you will feel that the practical results of COINS will lead to a healthy society in the future.
We look forward to welcoming you to the 8th COINS Symposium.

 

COINS has been working on research and development of "smart nanomachines" based on the concept of "In-body Hospitals" to realize a smart life care society. Our goal for 2045 is a future medical care that virus-sized smart nanomachines autonomously patrol around the microenvironment inside the body to detect signs of disease, treat the disease. In addition to the five themes targeting diseases that have become major social and economic burden from the beginning of the project, we have set up an additional, 6th theme that constructs a social system to deliver the R&D outcome to the society. This was facilitated because our R&D benefits from an open innovation system with industry, academia and government. As a result, we were able to establish the elemental technologies that constitutes the “In-body Hospitals”, which was the goal of the project.
In this symposium, the COINS scientists will make presentation on the outcome of their R&D outcomes that lead to the future prevention and treatment using cutting-edge nanobio technology. The keywords are “cancer”, “brain disease”, “mRNA”, “diagnostic device”, “nanomachines and medical device” and “innovation eco-system”, and the diffusion mechanism for the social implementation bring together the material progress of our nine years project. We hope everyone who participated will enjoy the challenge of the future medical care that unfolds in Kawasaki through this symposium.

Part One: COINS Researchers Session

COINS sets six themes such as DDS (drug delivery system) using nanobiotechnology, development of diagnostic devices, and mRNA drug discovery, etc., . They are mainly targeting intractable diseases such as cancer and dementia, with the aim to actualize "In-body Hospitals".

The themes are:
Theme 1: Nanomachines which can target and eliminate intractable cancer
Theme 2: An innovative technology for the treatment of cranial nerve diseases
Theme 3: Nanomachines that carry messenger RNA (mRNA) for tissue reconstruction and nano-sized vaccine
Theme 4: The system for in-home cancer diagnosis, which requires no blood sampling
Theme 5: Theranostic system, which combines nanomachines and medical equipment ultra-minimally invasive treatment
Theme 6: Social system for implementation of the results into society

Click here for the details of each theme

We are also working on creating a mechanism (innovation platform) that enables innovation through activities aiming to realize an “In-body Hospitals”.
In this session, after explaining the achievement of COINS, the COINS scientists will report their achievement of each theme, and finally, the Research Leader will give you the COINS research outcomes, which shall enter a new stage.

－COINS Researchers Session

1. Overview of CONS

2. Building an innovation ecosystem to accelerate social implementation

3. Miniaturized medical devices to support at home medical care

4. Development of cancer-targeted nanomachines

5. Development of innovative therapeutic nanomachines for the treatment of cranial nerve diseases

6. mRNA medicine and mRNA vaccinem

7. Fusion of nanomachine and medical device

8. COINS R&D - towards the next stage

Part 2: Round-table talk: Towards the Realization of a Smart Life Care Society

Individuals aged 65 years and over already accounts for nearly 30% of Japan's population. Going forward, with declining birthrate and an aging population, it is estimated that 36% of population will be more than 65 years old in year 2050.
As a result, increased medical expenses and burden of nursing / long-term care will materially impact to people’s life. COINS has been conducting research to extend the healthy life expectancy of people in anticipating such a super-aging society.
“In-body hospitals” becomes one of the major pillars. It will prevent the aggravation of the disease by early detection, early diagnosis, and early treatment. In so doing fulfil the aim to realize a society where people can live a healthy and autonomous life without being bedridden. This is a smart life care society.

In part 2, today’s high school students who will be the key cohort to provide care in 2045 when the “In-body hospitals” is anticipated to be reality and COINS scientists are focusing on the content of prior discussions on issues in the super-aging society and their scientific solutions. We anticipate insightful and productive comments from our invited, multidisciplinary, guests from the fields of industries, universities, education, nursing, and scientific literacy.
We will facilitate audience participation and intend to reflect the audience’s priorities and focus, deploying an online voting function, as invaluable inputs for our future research.