Yoshinobu Konishi Yoshinobu Konishi

Hospital-Specific Assistant Professor, Kyoto University Hospital, Kyoto University *Profile is at the time of the award.

2026HagukumuBiology & Life sciences(hagukumu)

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Research topics: Spatial immune analysis for response prediction and resistance mitigation of bispecific antibody therapy in multiple myeloma

Keyword

Summary: While bispecific antibody therapy demonstrates remarkable efficacy against multiple myeloma, most patients ultimately relapse, and accurate prediction of treatment response remains elusive. This study employs spatial multi-omics technologies, including Imaging Mass Cytometry, to characterize the spatial organization and interactions between tumor and immune cells within the bone marrow. By spatially profiling pre-treatment bone marrow samples from 60 patients, we aim to identify spatial immune patterns predictive of treatment response, followed by large-scale validation in 210 cases across multiple institutions. Integrating these spatial features with machine learning, we seek to develop a clinically deployable prognostic scoring system—a pioneering effort in the emerging field of hematologic spatial biology.

Message

Returning from my fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, I came back with both a sense of possibility in spatial immune profiling of bone marrow tissue and a clear awareness of how much remains to be proven in terms of its clinical value. The simple question that drives this work is whether we can predict, before treatment begins, which patients will respond—sparing others from unnecessary side effects and guiding more informed treatment decisions. With the support of the Inamori Foundation, I hope to work steadily alongside collaborators both in Japan and abroad to validate this approach in a rigorous way. There is still a long road ahead, but my aim is to develop something that genuinely matters to each individual patient living with multiple myeloma, one careful step at a time.