FIGON DMD

Prof. Tetsuya Terasaki

Research Director, School of Pharmacy, University of Eastern Finland, FINLAND, Professor Emeritus, Tohoku University, JAPAN

Ariens award 2023

In 2023, the laureate is Prof. Tetsuya Terasaki. His Ariens lecture is entitled: “Pharmacoproteomics of the Brain Barriers”.

Tetsuya Terasaki is Research Director of Bioanalytics, School of Pharmacy, University of Eastern Finland (UEF) and Professor Emeritus of Tohoku University (TU), Japan. He received a Ph.D. degree in Biopharmacy from University of Tokyo in 1982 and was appointed Professor of TU in 1996 and Distinguished Professor of TU in 2008 and retired from TU in 2020, and moved to UEF to continue his research in Finland. He has been serving as an editor of Journal of Pharmaceutical Science since 2008. He published over 330 research articles, 30 review articles and book chapters. He received the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon, bestowed by the Government of Japan in 2013. He was selected as a “Highly Cited Researcher 2016” in Pharmacology & Toxicology by Clarivate Analytics. His h-index is 76. One of key aspects of his research style is that he has focused on developing new methodology to address difficult and challenging questions. A major focus of his research has been to clarify transport function of drugs and endogenous compounds in the CNS barriers including ocular barriers. In 2008, he developed a novel methodology to quantify membrane proteins based on an in silico peptide selection criteria for the target proteomics. He has opened a new research field of pharmacoproteomics defined by quantitative proteomics-based pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, toxicokinetics, clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, which is expected to play an important role in the progress of the pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences in the next decade.

Presentation: Pharmacoproteomics of the Brain Barriers

Membrane transporters, SLC (solute carrier) transporter and ABC (ATP Binding Cassette) transporter play a key role in regulating drug and endogenous substrate exchange between the circulating blood and brain interstitial fluid. The brain has four barriers, i.e., the blood-brain barrier, blood-spinal cord barrier, blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier, and blood-arachnoid barrier. We have developed a novel method to quantify membrane proteins by mass spectrometry combined with in silico peptide selection criteria. Using this method, we have revealed the membrane protein expression in the brain barriers. In this lecture, I will show how the membrane protein quantification is useful in the prediction of unbound drug concentration in the brain and the understanding of receptor-mediated drug effect.