Interview With a World Renowned Researcher From Japan

 

On April 9, 2015 a personal interview with a world renowned researcher dedicating his career to developing a treatment for Morquio Type B - Dr. Katsumi Higaki -  was conducted.

 

Dr. Higaki lives and works in Japan. This article shows him with our classmate, JonQuasia (JQ) Wilson. It is JQ that conducted this interview. Dr. Katsumi Higaki, Ph.D, is an Associate Professor, Division of Functional Genomics at Tottori University, Japan.  He has been researching Morquio B syndrome and GM1 gangliosidosis since 2003 and has over 50 publications on these topics to his credit. His team is actively developing a therapy for Morquio B syndrome and GM1 gangliosidosis. His work is daily breaking new ground and giving hope to Morquio Type B patients all over the world.  

 

In his interview with JQ, Dr. Higaki said the following about Morquio Type B: “It is an autosomal recessive inborn error of a metabolic disease. It is a lysosomal storage disease.  It is very rare and includes skeletal dysplasia (the bones shift and change). There is no central nervous system involvement but neurological (brain related) manifestation may occur in some patients at the late stage of the disease. There is no specific therapy is available at this point however several therapeutic approaches are now being developed such as pharmacological chaperone (a small, manmade molecule that will correct or fix mutant protein molecules) and gene therapy.”

 

He is one of the leading researchers for these groundbreaking therapies and cannot stress enough how important it is to keep this research funded. We are very grateful to Dr. Higaki for sharing his knowledge and time with us!