
Welcome to the Hirata lab website!
We aim to establish a revolutionary treatment strategy for incurable malignancies.
Since the discovery of an oncogene encoding a protein kinase, inhibiting its activity has been considered a powerful weapon against various types of malignancy. In practice, selective inhibitors of Abl, EGFR, BRAF, etc. have shown promising clinical results. However, the emergence of resistance to these targeted therapeutics has become one of the major challenges in oncology. Our research has shown that fibroblasts present in the melanoma microenvironment play a critical role in creating a temporary drug-resistant 'safe haven' for BRAF inhibitors. In addition, we have found that melanoma cells in different organs respond differently to BRAF inhibitors, both clinically and experimentally. These findings clearly demonstrate the need to consider the impact of the tumour microenvironment in cancer treatment.
