Immunology

Prof. YASUDA Tomoharu

【Research Keywords】
Immune responses, Vaccines, Cancer immunity, Immune surveillance, EB virus, Allergy, Autoimmune diseases, Immunosenescence, Tissue regeneration

【Recent highlights】
・ Discovered that immune surveillance mechanisms induced by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection suppress the development of various cancers. (Front Immunol, 2025)
・ Identified surface markers that characterize cytotoxic CD4⁺ T cells. (Front Immunol, 2025)
・ Developed a technique to simultaneously generate high-affinity mouse monoclonal antibodies of different isotypes. (Heliyon, 2024)
・ Found that Eed-dependent histone modifications are essential for the differentiation program of NKT cells and protect against liver injury. (Front Immunol, 2024)
・ Reported the immune induction mechanism by which broadly neutralizing activity is acquired against mutant viruses. (Int Immunol, 2023)
・ Clarified the characteristics of antibodies with broad neutralizing activity against mutant viruses through analysis of antibodies acquired by COVID-19 patients. (Commun Biol, 2023)
・ Demonstrated for the first time that acute viral infection can be reproduced in mice by expressing specific EBV genes, establishing a gene therapy model for congenital immunodeficiency. (PNAS, 2016)
・ Achieved the successful reconstruction in mice of EBV-induced B-cell lymphoma and host immune surveillance. (Cell, 2012)
・ Discovered that ERK protein kinases regulate proliferation linked to antigen receptor gene rearrangement, shaping the B-cell population. (Immunity, 2008)

Profiles of Faculty and Research Scholars

【Major Papers of the Laboratory】
・Jin, Y., Guo, Y., Kawano, Y., Sasatani, M., Ohki, S., Yamane, K., Ota, Y., Tamura, Y., Sotomaru, Y., Baba, Y., and Yasuda, T. T cell-mediated immune surveillance conferred by latent Epstein-Barr virus genes suppresses a broad spectrum of tumor formation through NKG2D-NKG2DL interactions. Front. Immunol., 2025. in press
・Guo, Y., Ohki, S., Kawano, Y., Kong, W.S., Ohno, Y., Honda, H., Kanno, M., and Yasuda, T. Eed-dependent histone modification orchestrates the iNKT cell developmental program alleviating liver injury. Front Immunol, 15, 1467774, 2024.
・Shitaoka, K., Higashiura, A., Kawano, Y., Yamamoto, A., Mizoguchi, Y., Hashiguchi, T., Nishimichi, N., Huang, S., Ito, A., Ohki, S., Kanda, M., Taniguchi, T., Yoshizato, R., Azuma, H., Kitajima, Y., Yokosaki, Y., Okada, S., Sakaguchi, T., and Yasuda, T. Structural basis of spike RBM-specific human antibodies counteracting broad SARS-CoV-2 variants. Commun Biol, 6, 395, 2023.
・Tamura, Y., Ohki, S., Nagai, H., Yoshizato, R., Nishi, S., Jin, Y., Kitajima, Y., Guo, Y., Ichinohe, T., Okada, S., Kawano, Y., and Yasuda, T. Co-expression of B7-H3 and LAG3 represents cytotoxicity of CD4+ T cells in humans. Front. Immunol., 16, 2025.
・Yoshizato, R., Miura, M., Shitaoka, K., Matsuoka, Y., Higashiura, A., Yamamoto, A., Guo, Y., Azuma, H., Kawano, Y., Ohga, S., and Yasuda, T. Comprehensive method for producing high-affinity mouse monoclonal antibodies of various isotypes against (4-hydroxy-3-nitrophenyl)acetyl (NP) hapten. Heliyon, 10, e40837, 2024.

【Education】
Undergraduate Education (School of Medicine):
Program of Medicine: Lecture and practice of "Immunology" and "Parasitology" (1st and 2nd grade). Practice for Medical Research in Immunology (4th grade).
Program of Health Sciences: Lecture of "Microbiology Immunology" (2nd grade).
Graduate Education:
The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences offers courses on "Hospital Defense" and "Human Body Functions," and the Graduate School of Integrated Life Sciences offers "Advanced Genome Editing Research B."
In doctoral research guidance, students are given research themes with a view to publishing English research papers, and guidance is given on research and writing papers.

【Reseach】
We study how the immune system is regulated through the antigen receptor, signal transduction, and genetic programs for differentiation and proliferation to overcome infectious diseases, cancer, allergy, autoimmunity, aging, and tissue regeneration.

【Photo explanation】Group photo of the Immunology Laboratory (2025.4)

【Contact】

Tomoharu Yasuda, Ph.D.
Department of Immunology, Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University
1-2-3 Kasumi, Minami-ku, Hiroshima, 734-8551, Japan
Phone. +81-82-257-5175
E-mail. yasudat[at]hiroshima-u.ac.jp
(Please replace the “[at]” with “@”)


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