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Physiology Lab
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The lab aims to develop drugs for healthy longevity, using muscle diseases as a starting point.
AboutAbout the lab
Strategies for healthy longevity, from research on cardiac metabolism.
The lab aims to create strategies that contribute to human healthy longevity, based on research into redox and energy metabolism in the heart.
Focusing on proteins that cause muscle diseases such as heart failure and muscle-wasting diseases, the lab investigates how muscle adapts to external stress from the perspective of quality control of intracellular proteins and organelles (mainly mitochondria).
In close collaboration with the Division of Cardiocirculatory Signaling at the National Institute for Physiological Sciences, the lab also works on expanding the indications of approved drugs and on developing new drugs based on those compounds.
Key terms
- Eco-pharma
- Drug discovery that finds new effects among approved drugs whose safety is assured by the government, so that they can be used for diseases outside their original indications.
- Approved drugs
- Drugs that have already been approved and whose safety is assured by the government.
- Mitochondria
- One of the organelles in a cell. This lab studies muscle regeneration and repair from the perspective of mitochondrial quality control.
NewsLab news
Won an Excellent Poster Award at the 48th Kyushu Symposium on the Structure and Function of Proteins and Enzymes
Won an Excellent Poster Award at the 2026 Kyushu Branch Meeting of the Japanese Biochemical Society
ResearchResearch themes
The lab aims to develop drugs that contribute to healthy longevity, pursuing eco-pharma drug discovery: finding new effects among approved drugs whose safety is assured by the government so that they can be used for other diseases. By understanding how the proteins that cause muscle diseases work in the body, it aims to build drug discovery strategies that suppress only the pathological functions while preserving the normal ones, restoring a healthy state.
*Illustrative imageExpanding the Indications of Approved Drugs (Eco-Pharma)
The lab has shown that a membrane protein that transmits extracellular stimuli into the cell forms a complex with another protein when exposed to disease-causing stress, producing excessive reactive oxygen species and triggering heart failure. Recently, it found an approved drug that acts on this interaction and can reduce muscle atrophy.
*Illustrative imageControlling Disease Risk from Environmental Chemicals
It has become clear that combined exposure to highly reactive chemicals such as tobacco smoke, PM2.5, and heavy metals lowers mitochondrial quality and worsens prognosis after disease onset. The lab has found that sulfur-containing components in foods and hot springs may reduce the risk of disease onset and of a worse prognosis.
*Illustrative imageToward Drugs That Mimic Exercise
Moderate exercise is effective for preventing every kind of disease and improving prognosis, but no drug yet mimics its effects. Targeting a protein that causes muscle cells to atrophy, the lab aims to develop drugs that keep the muscles of patients who cannot exercise supple.
MembersFaculty
The lab's members consist of faculty, postdoctoral researchers, doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students, students of the Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), administrative assistants, technical staff, and technical support staff.As of 2026
- ProfessorMotohiro Nishida
- LecturerYuri Kato
- Assistant ProfessorTomoya Ito
- Assistant ProfessorXinya Mi
- Assistant ProfessorYara Ahmed
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Mitochondria 4 -- Smart-Servier” Laboratoires Servier / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Expanding the Indications of Approved Drugs (Eco-Pharma): “Empty shelves in one pharmacy in Suzhou-20220214” Shwangtianyuan / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Controlling Disease Risk from Environmental Chemicals: “HARSHAW CHEMICAL COMPANY DISCHARGES WASTE WATER INTO THE CUYAHOGA RIVER - NARA - 550193” Frank John Aleksandrowicz / Public domain (cropped)
- Toward Drugs That Mimic Exercise: “Exercise Treadmill Convey Motion” Larry D. Moore / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
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- Related lab (環境調和創薬化学分野): “Palladium on carbon” Marbletan / CC0 (cropped)
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（協力講座） ): “Old pharmacy pills exposition in exposition History of pharmacies in Kuks Hospital in Kuks, Trutnov District” Jiří Sedláček / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped) - Related lab (創薬構造解析学分野): “Autism Aspect Pain Sensitivity 1” MissLunaRose12 / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
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