Kazuo Kunisawa

Inflammatory bowel disease (ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease) is a designated intractable disease characterized by alternating periods of active disease and remission, affecting approximately 6 million people worldwide. Many patients experience relapses even after achieving remission with existing treatments, making long-term maintenance of remission and relapse prediction crucial challenges. This project focuses on disease-associated immune cell populations that co-express specific surface antigens in inflammatory bowel disease, aiming to evaluate disease activity and stratify patients by measuring these cells. Furthermore, it aims to create next-generation therapies that achieve relapse suppression and long-term remission maintenance by developing bispecific antibodies that simultaneously recognize two surface antigens and selectively controlling cell populations involved in the disease state.