Tadashi Yamamoto

Dr. Tadashi Yamamoto is a pioneer of proteomics of kidney diseases and urine biomarker discovery since he engaged in the HUPO Human Kidney & Urine Proteome Project (HKUPP) as the chair in 2005 and contributed in a major way to the introduction of proteomics in nephrology. During his chairmanship for about 10 years, the HKUPP provided the HKUPP guide for urine sample collection for urine proteomics and collected proteome datasets of urine, kidney and urinary tract organ through international collaborations. Dr. Yamamoto and his colleagues have developed protocols for proteomics of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded human kidney biopsy tissues and analyzed chronic kidney disease (CKD) with glomerular sections collected by a laser micro-dissection system to understand protein interactions in the glomerulus by proteomics. Dr. Yamamoto is now expanding this approach to discover biomarkers for other diseases, such as diabetes and its complication and cancers by establishing urinary native peptide separation and label-free peptidomics as well. The proteomic analysis of patient kidney biopsy samples introduced by Dr. Yamamoto opened new insights into kidney tissue injury and reactions, which are not easily evaluated by regular pathological examination. The individual biopsy tissue proteomics will help understand disease conditions more precisely than histology and will contribute to precision medicine of CKD patients. In addition, the discovery of urine biomarkers for kidney segment-specific injuries will not only contribute to individual CKD patient care by the precise recognition of kidney injuries but also to facilitate development of new treatments for CKD, which have not achieved yet, by providing the urine biomarkers for evaluation of efficiency of new treatments. Dr. Yamamoto is developing a proteomics assay systems in clinical laboratories for evaluation of hundreds of urinary biomarkers at once and has already achieved a throughput to analyze more than one thousand proteins in individual urine sample at a speed of ~50 analyses a day. Such proteomics systems may be used as a general laboratory equipment in the future for quantitation of multiple disease markers in urine since it does not need to develop antibodies as immunoassay.