Dr Masamichi Satoh - 2010

"The fruits of opioid research in Japan
                  -- A personal view --"

Dr Masamichi Satoh 
(Yasuda Women's University, Hiroshima, Japan)

Dr Satoh could not attend the INRC Meeting and was awarded in absentia.

Dr. Hiroshi Takagi (1924 - ; professor emeritus of Kyoto University) was a pioneer and leader of opioid research in Japan and was my teacher in pharmacology. He joined the INRC at very early stage and was nominated as a member of the executive committee in 1972, so I regard him as a founder of the INRC. This presentation will include some products of opioid research originated from the laboratories of Prof. Takagi (and the successor) in Kyoto University and other groups in Japan: Early history revealing mechanisms of analgesic action of morphine; an enhancement of the bulbospinal descending inhibitory system and an involvement of the descending noradrenergic pathway, identification of kyotorphin (Tyr-Arg, an analgesic dipeptide) from the bovine brain, cloning of cDNAs for rat KOR and MOR, modulation of psychological dependence on morphine under inflammatory or neuropathic nociceptive (painful) state (Dr. T. Suzuki and colleagues), discovery and development of a novel anti-itch (pruritus) drug, nalfurafine hydrochloride which is a selective KOR agonist (Dr. H. Nagase and colleagues).