School of Medicine
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Gentaro Ikeda
Instructor, Medicine - Cardiovascular Medicine
BioDr. Ikeda is a physician-scientist who develops innovative diagnostic and therapeutic modalities for patients with cardiovascular disease. Based on his clinical experience as a cardiologist, he has become aware of major clinical shortcomings, specifically in the current pharmaceutical therapies for myocardial infarction (MI) and chronic heart failure (HF). Some evidence-based drug therapies, including β-blockers, ivabradine, and renin-angiotensin-aldosterone antagonists are difficult to apply to critical patients due to adverse side effects. Drugs that have shown efficacy in basic animal experiments have failed to show significant benefits in clinical trials. To address these problems, he moved to academia to conduct translational research. During his graduate training in the Egashira Lab, he focused on drug delivery systems (DDS) that target mitochondria in animal models of MI. He obtained advanced skills in molecular biology, mitochondrial bioenergetics, and animal surgery. He realized the importance of translational research and the great potential of DDS to overcome many clinical problems. He developed nanoparticle-mediated DDS containing cyclosporine for the treatment of patients with MI. He published a first-author paper and received academic awards for his novel science. Since becoming a postdoctoral fellow in the Yang Lab, he has continued to build upon his previous training in translational research. He is currently developing an innovative therapy, namely, extracellular vesicles-mediated mitochondrial transfer for mitochondria-related diseases such as heart failure and mitochondrial disease.