Dr. Kazuo Maruyama

He has graduated Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kumamoto University in 1979. He has been full professor of Teikyo University since 2002. Dr. Maruyama has been internationally well recognized for his research achievement in the field of liposome for cancer therapy and gene therapy. Recently, he has succeeded in developing lipid bubble (LB), which is a lipid micelle entrapping perfluorocarbon gas, and its freeze-dried formulation.

Freeze-dried LB formulation is good for storage stability and ease of handling. LB can use for both as a contrast agent in ultrasonography and a non-invasive delivery for drug and gene delivery. He achieved enhancement of ERP effect by the opening of neovasculature in the combination of LB and ultrasound. Oscillation (repetition of the expansion and compression) of LB induced by therapeutic ultrasound exposure showed transiently open the vessel walls of neovasculature in tumor tissue and allowed to deliver anticancer drug and/or its nanomedicine into deep area in the tumor tissue. Thus, the combination of LB and ultrasound is a good tool for “Theranostics (diagnostics and therapeutics)” in cancer therapy.