The 146th Annual Meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan (Osaka)

Organizer: Hiroyuki Miyachi (Drug Discovery Initiative, Grad. Sch. Pharm. Sci., Univ. of Tokyo), Motomu Kanai (Grad. Sch. Pharm. Sci., Univ. of Tokyo)

Japan's pharmaceutical industry and academia are now facing concerns over the depletion of promising drug discovery targets. Technologies capable of rapidly and reliably identifying compounds that act on the few remaining targets are urgently needed. DNA-encoded libraries (DELs) are drawing strong attention as a next-generation screening platform, enabling efficient exploration of vast chemical space and the identification of novel drug seeds. However, Japan's efforts in DEL research and development have so far lagged behind Europe, the United States, and China.
To address this gap, the Structural Expansion Unit of the Drug Discovery Initiative, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo, launched a national DEL platform project in 2022 with support from AMED. This initiative, designed as a shared resource for both academia and industry, has already begun to produce results in pharmaceutical R&D. At the same time, domestic researchers are increasingly publishing fundamental achievements in DEL synthesis, the core of the platform. These developments clearly indicate that Japan is entering the formative stage of DEL-driven drug discovery.
In this symposium, leading young scientists pioneering DEL synthesis will present their innovative concepts, strategies, and underlying philosophies. We hope this event will become a milestone in establishing the future of DEL-based drug discovery in Japan.