World's first practical and scalable application of stem cell differentiation induction technology, including those applied to iPS cells, to recapitulate human respiratory epithelial cells.
Drug screening services, for both respiratory safety and in situ efficacy, for efficient identification of candidate molecules of desired profile.

HiLung's innovative technology

It has been long known that stable and reliable cultivation of primary cells (i.e., directly sourced from the patients) is very difficult, much less at a mass scale. By inducing stem cells to differentiate into human respiratory epithelial cells based on our portfolio of patented differentiation technologies, we have brought about mass-produced cells that have essentially the same functions as in living organisms, as a model reliably reproducing human pathophysiology in vitro. Ours is the world's first successful industrial application of such technology.

Underlying all our efforts and services are a core consisting of a series of proprietary technologies that enables this differentiation induction process particular to respiratory cells and organoids. We are developing a variety of drug discovery platforms and services on top of these core technologies. The reconstructed human cells can be used as a highly accurate model replicating human physiology and disease for disease-level AND patient-level target discovery, stratification, and validation, as well as lead discovery and optimization, as well as drug repurposing and personalization research purposes.

We will thus assist in greatly accelerating the discovery and development of drugs to treat respiratory diseases for which no curative option exists, and in addition, the use of highly functional cells.
By continuously creating innovative therapies such as regenerative medicine, we will be able to our goal is to reduce the number of people suffering from respiratory diseases as much as possible.

List of key research papers

1. Yin X, Riva L, Pu Y, Martin-Sancho L, Kanamune J, Yamamoto Y, Sakai K, Gotoh S, Miorin L, De Jesus PD, Yang CC, Herbert KM, Yoh S, Hultquist JF, Garcia-Sastre A, Chanda SK*. MDA5 governs the innate immune response to SARS-CoV-2 in lung epithelial cells. Cell Rep, 2021; 34: 108628.
2. Kanagaki S, Ikeo S, Suezawa T, Yamamoto Y, Seki M, Hirai T, Hagiwara M, Suzuki Y, Gotoh S*. Directed induction of alveolar type I cells derived from pluripotent stem cells via Wnt signaling inhibition. Stem Cells, 2020, In Press.
3. Korogi Y, Gotoh S*, Ikeo S, Yamamoto Y, Sone N, Tamai K, Konishi S, Nagasaki T, Matsumoto H, Ito I, Chen-Yoshikawa TF, Date H, Hagiwara M, Asaka I, Hotta A, Mishima M, Hirai T. In vitro disease modeling of Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome type 2 using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived alveolar organoids. Stem Cell Reports, 2019; 12: 431-440. (Selected for Journal Cover).
4. Yamamoto Y, Gotoh S*, Korogi Y, Seki M, Konishi S, Ikeo S, Sone N, Nagasaki T, Matsumoto H, Muro S, Ito I, Hirai T, Kohno T, Suzuki Y, Mishima M. Long-term expansion of alveolar stem cells derived from human iPS cells in organoids. Nat Methods, 2017; 14:1097-1106.
5. Konishi S, Gotoh S*, Tateishi K, Yamamoto Y, Korogi Y, Nagasaki T, Matsumoto H, Muro S, Hirai T, Ito I, Tsukita S, Mishima M. Directed induction of functional multi-ciliated cells in proximal airway epithelial spheroids from human pluripotent stem cells. Stem Cell Reports, 2016; 6: 18-25.
6. Gotoh S*, Ito I*, Nagasaki T, Yamamoto Y, Konishi S, Korogi Y, Matsumoto H, Muro S, Hirai T, Funato M, Mae S, Toyoda T, Sato-Otsubo A, Ogawa S, Osafune K, Mishima M.　Generation of alveolar epithelial spheroids via isolated progenitor cells from human pluripotent stem cells. Stem Cell Reports, 2014; 3: 394-