Contact Details:

ken.suzuki@qmul.ac.uk

Ken Suzuki is a cardiovascular surgeon and scientist, trained at Osaka University, Japan. Following a PhD awarded for his work on gene therapy for myocardial protection, he was recruited to the Harefield Heart Science Centre, Imperial College London (head; Prof Sir Magdi Yacoob, FRS) in 1998. As the leader of a small group in this Centre, he successfully completed a large series of research projects on stem cell therapy and gene therapy for treating heart disease. Subsequently Suzuki took up the chair of a new research group within the William Harvey Research Institute in 2007. Here, he has organised a well-balanced, multi-disciplinary group which is possesses the wide-range of expertise needed to carry out translational cardiovascular research. Suzuki is a former MRC Senior Clinical Fellow (2003-2008) and JSPS Research Fellow (1995-1998), and is a Visiting Professor of Imperial College London.

Current research interests

Suzuki’s research primarily aims to develop novel approaches to treat the diseased heart, e.g. stem cell therapy, regenerative therapy, gene therapy, and others. His target diseases include acute and chronic heart failure, as well as ischaemia-reperfusion injury. Currently his work focuses on translational research on stem/progenitor cell therapy for treating heart failure. His strategy acknowledges that the real clinical success of this type of therapy critically depends on the resolution of several fundamental issues and consequent improvement of the protocol by further laboratory research.

His research focuses upon various aspects of the behaviour of grafted stem/progenitor cells in a cardiac environment at genetic, molecular cellular and organ levels. His previous achievements include the clarification of the acute dynamics of grafted cells in the heart and the development of strategies to enhance graft survival; the development of original cell-delivery models including retrograde intracoronary infusion; improvement of cell-cell connections between donor cells and host cardiomyocytes. In addition, he has proposed an important role of donor cell type-specific “paracrine effects” of cell therapy and demonstrated that implantation of genetically modified cells which over-express VEGF and IL-1 receptor antagonist exhibit markedly enhanced therapeutic benefits as cell-based gene therapy. More recent projects include the studies of cardiac side population cells as cardiac resident progenitor cells, initial retention of stem/progenitor cells following intracoronary injection, arrhythmogenicity of cell therapy, and the role of the inflammatory response in cell therapy-mediated effects.

On-going cell-therapy projects in Suzuki’s lab include:

• Pre-clinical studies for the development of a novel “cell-sheet” therapy to the heart: epicardial placement of cell-sheets of adult stem/progenitor cells generated using temperature responsive dishes (Drs Narita and Ikebe; funded by NIHR, Barts and The London Charity and CellSeed, Inc).
  
  
• Initiation of clinical trials of “cell-sheet” therapy to the heart under an international consortium including UK, Germany, Finland, Denmark and Japan (collaboration with Mr Uppal; funded by CellSeed, Inc).
  
  
• Enhancing the early endothelial interactions and retention of stem/progenitor cells following intracoronary injection (Dr Campbell in collaboration with Profs Nourshargh and Mathor; funded by BHF).
  
  
• Role of the inflammatory response and damage-associated molecular patterning proteins in cell therapy to the heart (Drs Shintani and Kaneko).
  
  
• Characterisation of cardiomyogenic differentiation of embryonic and adult cardiac progenitor cells by analysing single cell-derived cDNA using the next generation sequencer (Dr Yashiro; funded by MRC).
  
  
• Understanding and enhancement of maturation of cardiomyocytes (Miss DeMartino and Dr Yashiro).

In addition, there are many other cardiovascular research projects on-going within Suzuki’s group, including:

• Identification of a novel TLR signalling pathway that protects cardiomyocytes via regulating the energy status (Dr Shintani; funded by MRC).

• Leukocyte telomere dynamics in patients at risk of sudden death; development of a potential biomarker (Drs Brouilette and Sawhney in collaboration with Prof Schilling; funded by Barts and The London Charity and Wellcome Trust).
  
  
• Telomere biology in patients with renal diseases, sepsis, and hypertension (Drs Brouilette and Sawhney in collaboration with Profs Yacoob, Caulfield, and Hinds).
  
  
  
• Basic telomere biology in cardiomyocytes and skeletal myoblasts (Dr Brouilette).
  
  
• Development of EPO latent peptides for protection of the infarcted heart (Collaboration with Profs Chernajovsky and Thiemermann; funded by BHF).

 

More about Prof Suzuki's stem cell research

• http://www.heartcellsfoundation.com
• http://www.ukscf.org/foundation/currentProjects.htm

Key publications

• Fukushima S, Campbell NG, Coppen SR, Yamahara K, Yuen AHY, Smolensk RT, Yacoub MH, Suzuki K.  Quantitative assessment of initial embedment of bone marrow mononuclear cells injected into the coronary arteries. J Heart Lung Transplant. 2011;30:227-332.
  
  
• Lovell M, Kate Lee K, Yasin M, Cheung K, Shintani Y, Collino M, Sivarajah A, Leung K, Takahashi K, Kapoor A, Yaqoob M, Suzuki K, Lythgoe M, Martin J, Munroe P, Thiemermann C, Mathur A. Bone Marrow Mononuclear Cells Reduce Myocardial Reperfusion Injury by Activating the PI3K/Akt Survival Pathway. Atherosclerosis. 2010;213:67-76.
  
  
• Kapoor A, Shintani Y, Collino M, Osuchowski MF, Busch D, Patel NS, Sepodes B, Castiglia S, Fantozzi R, Bishop-Bailey D, Mota-Filipe H, Yaqoob MM, Suzuki K, Bahrami S, Désvergne B, Mitchell JA, Thiemermann C. Protective role of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-β/δ in septic shock. Am J Resp Crit Care Med. 2010;182:1506-15.
  
  
• Kratsios P, Huth M, Temmerman L, Salimova E, Al Banchaabouchi M, Sgoifo A, Manghi M, Suzuki K, Rosenthal N, Mourkioti F. Antioxidant amelioration of dilated cardiomyopathy caused by conditional deletion of NEMO/IKKgamma in cardiomyocytes. Circ Res. 2010;106:133-44.
  
  
• Shintani Y, Fukushima S, Varela-Carva, Coppen SR, Takahashi K, Brouilette SW, Salem H, Yashiro K, Yacoub MH, Suzuki K. Donor cell-specific responses of the host myocardium after cell transplantation into post-infarction chronically failing rat heart. J Mol Cell Cardiol. 2009, 47:228-95.

• Coppen SR, Fukushima S, Shintani Y, Takahashi K, Varela-Carver A, Salem H, Yashiro K, Yacoub MH, Suzuki K. A factor underlying arrhythmogenicity after cell therapy to the heart: Global down-regulation of connexin43 in the host myocardium following skeletal myoblast transplantation. Circulation2008;118:S138-44.

  
  
  
• Takahashi K, Fukushima S, Yamahara K, Yashiro K, Shintani Y, Coppen SR, Salem HK, Brouilette S, Yacoub MH, Suzuki K. Modulated inflammation by injection of high-mobility group box 1 recovers post-infarction chronically failing heart. Circulation. 2008;118:S106-14.
  
  
• Yamahara K, Fukushima S, Coppen SR, Felkin LE, Varela-Carver A, Barton PJ, Yacoub MH, Suzuki K. Heterogeneic nature of adult cardiac side population cells. Biochem Biophys Res Commun.

  2008;371:615-20.
  
  
  
• Fukushima S, Varela-Carver A, Coppen SR, Yamahara K, Felkin LE, Lee J, Barton PJR, Terracciano CMN, Yacoub MH, Suzuki K. Direct intramyocardial, but not intracoronary, injection of bone marrow cells induces ventricular arrhythmias in a rat chronic ischemic heart failure model. Circulation. 2007;115:2254-61.
  
  
• Lara-Pezzi E, Winn N, Paul A, McCullagh K, Slominsky E, Santini MP, Mourkioti F, Sarathchandra P, Fukushima S, Suzuki K, Rosenthal N. A naturally occurring calcineurin variant inhibits FoxO activity and enhances skeletal muscle regeneration. J Cell Biol. 2007;179:1205-18.
  
  
• Santini MP, Tsao L, Monassier L, Theodoropoulos C, Carter J, Lara-Pezzi E, Slonimsky E, Salimova E, Delafontaine P, Song YH, Bergmann M, Freund C, Suzuki K, Rosenthal N. Enhancing repair of the mammalian heart. Circ Res. 2007;100:1732-40

 

 

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