News Releases & Research Results Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization and Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association launched a joint research project aiming at the early practical application of preventive/preemptive medical solutions

• On March 17, 2020, Tohoku University Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization and Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association concluded a joint research agreement based on the Partnership Agreement.

  Specifically, a joint research project was launched on the following three areas with the approval of relevant ethics committees:

  1. Association analysis research on lifestyle habits, brain morphology, and cognitive/psychological functions;
  2. Preliminary research to explore the biomarkers for stratification of sleep disorders;
  3. Preliminary research on the incidence of pathogenic variants causing hereditary breast ovarian cancer syndrome (HBOC) and Lynch syndrome as well as the prevalence of these diseases in the Japanese population.
• The research will be performed until March 2021.

The Tohoku Medical Megabank (TMM) Project* was conducted with the support of AMED.
* As implementing agencies of the TMM Project, Tohoku University Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization and Iwate Medical University Iwate Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization have created and improved a biobank providing samples and information collected from various studies, including local-resident cohort and three-generation cohort studies, performed in a total of 150,000 people from the fiscal year 2013 to rebuild a better healthcare system than before in areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and promote health in the victims.