Kuba lab｜Department of Pharmacology, Kyushu University Graduate School of Medical Sciences

About us

Towards the research goal of finding new drug targets, Kuba lab investigates the molecular mechanisms of disease and unknown principles of life. Using animal and cellular models of disease, we focus on elucidating the interactions and system linkages between different systems, such as RNA regulation and signal transduction. The main scope of diseases are heart failure, acute lung injury and malignant tumors, but we will also work on other rare diseases. To date, we have elucidated the mechanisms of cardiac function regulation by the RNA regulator CCR4-NOT (Cell 2010, Science Signaling 2018), Apelin signaling for improving heart failure (J Clin Invest 2013, Cardiovasc Res 2017), development of convergent evolutionary enzyme of ACE2 for prevention of severe COVID-19 (Nature Commun. 2020; 2021).

What's new

May. 21, 2024

With Dr. Shintaro Iwasaki at RIKEN, our collaborative paper “eIF4A1 enhances LARP1-mediated translational repression during mTORC1 inhibition” was published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
May. 8, 2024

With Prof. Masafumi Nakamura and Dr. Kohei Nakata at Department of Surgery and Oncology, Kyushu University, our collaborative paper “Blockade of histamine receptor H1 augments immune checkpoint therapy by enhancing MHC-I expression in pancreatic cancer cells” was published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
May. 1, 2024

Mrs. Yuzuki Niwa joined our lab as a technician.
Apr. 1, 2024

Mr. Yousef Ahmed Bakr KHALIL was selected as a scholarship recipient of the Otsuka Toshimi Scholarship Foundation.
Apr. 1, 2024

Mr. Naruhiko Ogo joined our lab as a PhD student.
Apr. 1, 2024

Dr. Ayaha Yamamoto joined our lab as an associate professor.
Sep. 23, 2023

We hosted the 74th Northern Meeting of the Japanese Pharmacological Society in Akita, Akita Prefecture, Japan. Maki Sukano, a fifth-year medical student who conducted experiments in our laboratory at Akita University, gave a poster presentation and received the Poster Excellence Presentation Award. Congratulations!
May. 29, 2023

Our paper ”Squamous cell carcinoma-derived G-CSF promotes tumor growth and metastasis in mice through neutrophil recruitment and tumor cell proliferation, associated with poor prognosis of the patients.”was published in Genes to Cells.
Apr. 28, 2023

Mr. Yutaro Kammura, a first grade of PhD course, was selected as a recipient of JST next generation program for the project” CCR4-NOT complex in the pathogenesis of ARDS/acute lung injury.”
Apr. 17, 2023

Mr. Yousef Ahmed Bakr KHALIL joined our lab as a PhD student.
Apr. 3, 2023

Mr. Kammura, Mr. Aoyagi and Mr. Ogawara joined our lab as PhD students.
Mar. 8, 2023

Our laboratory moved from Akita University to Kyushu University.
Mar. 5, 2023

With Dr. Nagaishi, our collaborative paper”Apelin expression is downregulated in T cells in a murine model of chronic colitis” was published in Biochem Biophys Res Commun.
Dec. 4, 2022

Our paper ”Identification of Galectin-7 as a crucial metastatic enhancer of squamous cell carcinoma associated with immunosuppression” was published in Oncogene.
Oct. 16, 2022

Prof. Keiji Kuba was appointed as Professor at Department of Pharmacology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University.