On 12th November 2024, we celebrated the Opening Ceremony for the newly constructed Bristol Myers Squibb Building, located on the Kyoto University campus and serving as the hub for activities for the Center for Cancer Immunotherapy and Immunobiology (CCII). For the Opening Ceremony Program and CVs of our VIP speakers, please take a look here. For more information about the 1st Symposium on Cancer Immunotherapy and Immunobiology (including Program, CVs of speakers, poster session) which took place from 13th to 15th November, please take a look here.

Present at the ribbon cutting were (from left to right in the photo) Tadashi Isa (Dean, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University), Steve Sugino (President and Representative Director, Bristol Myers Squibb K.K.), Nagahiro Minato (President, Kyoto University), Shigekazu Matsuura (Deputy Director-General, Research Promotion Bureau and Higher Education Policy, Science and Technology Policy Cooperation of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan), Tadao Ando (Architect) and Tasuku Honjo (Distinguished Professor Director, CCII, Kyoto University).
The building will house up to 300 researchers on five floors, with space set aside for collaborations with established pharmaceutical companies and biotech startups. “Before 2050, we would like to discover new life-saving cancer treatments”. Professor Tasuku Honjo clearly defined the ambitious goal of the CCII.
The CCII was formally established in April 2020, two years after Professor Honjo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with James Allison, “for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.” The CCII is Japan’s first integrated research center dedicated to immunotherapy. Since its inception four years ago, CCII researchers have been working in several buildings of the Kyoto University School of Medicine. The Bristol Myers Squibb building will now allow them to come together and collaborate closely under one roof.
The Opening Ceremony had as first speaker the president of Kyoto University, Prof. Nagahiro Minato, who has followed the PD-1 saga from the molecule’s discovery in 1992. He was a key player in creating the cancer research and development program around PD-1. Minato paid homage to the decades of work in the Honjo lab, from the determination of PD-1’s function to the development of a clinical research program and, ultimately, a revolutionary new form of cancer therapy. “I still vividly remember the moment at the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, after the press conference, when many cancer patients who had been saved by the therapy surrounded Professor Honjo, hugging him with tears in their eyes,” said Prof. Minato. “The basic concept of immune checkpoint therapy, which has opened up an entirely new path for cancer treatment, began right here, at Kyoto University […] led by Professor Honjo and supported by graduate students and young researchers working day and night.” Prof. Minato was followed by Prof. Tadashi Isa, Dean of Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Medicine, who delivered his wishes for the continued success of research at CCII.

Professor Honjo took the podium and thanked architect Tadao Ando, Bristol Myers Squibb K.K., MEXT Japan, Shimizu Corporation, and Kyoto University for their support in creating the CCII and the BMS research building. Prof. Honjo laid out CCII’s goals: to enhance immunotherapy by a variety of processes, including understanding and manipulating metabolism; to develop better prognostic methods to predict which patients will or will not respond to immunological therapies; to make immunologically “cold” tumors targets of effective immune responses; to uncover novel mechanisms of immune regulation. Professor Honjo introduced the current CCII research teams and highlighted the unique technological and scientific skills and resources already present at CCII.
The session continued with congratulatory remarks from Steve Sugino, Tadao Ando, Hiroyuki Mano (Director, Research Institute of Japan’s National Cancer Center), Shinya Yamanaka (Director Emeritus and Professor, Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA), Kyoto University, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012), Yukiko Gotoh (Professor, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the University of Tokyo), Ashok Venkitaraman (Director, Cancer Science Institute, SIngapore), H.E. Ms. Viktoria Li (Ambassador of Sweden to Japan), and Mien-Chie Hung (President of China Medical University, Taiwan). A virtual appearance was also made by Yasumasa Ishida (Associate Professor, Nara Institute of Science and Technology) who, as a graduate student in the Honjo lab, first discovered PD-1.
Steve Sugino told the audience that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the approval of anti-PD1 therapy for clinical use, and highlighted BMS’s longstanding partnership with Professor Honjo and his team, giving patients around the world “longer, healthier, and more active lives”. Sugino confided that he had already toured CCII and shared his excitement with encountering a vibrant, international group of researchers working on discovering new, yet undreamed of, cancer therapies. “This facility is built on history,” he said, “but this is truly about the future. To think about curing cancer may seem like a dream today, but I can imagine that thirty years ago the idea of harnessing the human body’s immune system to fight cancer was also a similar dream that no one believed in, except Professor Honjo and his team.”
The Ceremony concluded with two panel discussions with leading researcher in immunology and cancer
The first panel session, chaired by CCII Vice-Director Sidonia Fagarasan, discussed the importance of basic research to the development of current cancer immunotherapies.

Participating in the panel were (from left to right in the photo) Antonio Coutinho (Director Emeritus, Gulbenkian Science Institute), Adrian Hayday (Principal Group Leader at Francis Crick Institute & Kay Glendinning Professor, King’s College, London), Hilde Cheroutre (Professor, LaJolla Institute for Immunology), Michael Lenardo (Chief Scientific Officer, Calico Life Sciences LLC), and Ananda Goldrath (Director, Allen Institute of Immunology).
Coutinho began the session extolling the importance of creativity in research, and the need for CCII to allow and support young researchers to chase their own scientific curiosity and creativity. Coutinho recalled the previous statement by President Minato that you cannot have good applied research without fundamental basic science behind it. “The PD-1 story,” Coutinho said, “is a textbook example of the importance of basic science. In 22 years, a research group starting with a previously unknown gene built, piece by piece, all the biology of respective molecules and pathways (…) and had an incredibly precocious insight on the relevance of all this in tolerance and cancer.” The CCII is dedicated not only to immunotherapy, but also to immunobiology. For Coutinho, PD-1 therapy has paved the way for a more organism-centered cancer research program, which he sees as essential to the field’s future.
Hayday said that with checkpoint inhibitor therapy “We could suddenly accept that cancer has an enemy, and the enemy was a T cell, and the T cell could recognize a cancer cell, it could kill a cancer cell, and it could remember it, in case it came back again”. However, Hayday pointed out that the immune system functions as an orchestra and focusing on killer T cells was like focusing only on the violins. He emphasized the importance of understanding and exploiting the roles of all the other instruments in the orchestra, the other cell types of the innate and adaptive immune system, in the fight against cancer. In addition, as applied questions come to the fore, Hayday explained that some key questions would transition from biology to engineering — questions like how to grow enough cells for novel therapies, for example. Following Hayday, Cheroutre discussed the importance of not only understanding the role of other cell types, but of understanding immunological sites, especially the mucosal immune system.
Michael Lenardo shared a personal memory of the 1970s at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, when he first heard of the research of an enthusiastic young postdoc from Japan. These were stories of the young Tasuku Honjo pioneering the use of molecular biology to unravel the mechanisms of immunity. “He chose to go to one of the few labs that was entering this new field of molecular biology, which had been put together by physicists and chemists, and of course that was Phil Leder,” Lenardo said. “They’re incredible papers (Honjo and Leder’s work on immunoglobulin diversity) and reading them again I remembered why I was so inspired, as a student, to leave clinical medicine and get involved in molecular biology, because I felt that that niche science was going to transform all of biology and medicine.” Lenardo believes that the next revolution in biology and medicine will come from applying artificial intelligence (“these huge powerful new computational microscopes, or telescopes”) approaches to vast amounts of biological that are being generated.
Ananda Goldrath returned to Hayday’s orchestra analogy, contrasting our exquisite understanding of the individual molecules and cell types of the immune system with our ignorance of how all these instruments come together in a physiological symphony. She highlighted the need to collect data on global responses from patients undergoing not only cancer immunotherapy, but also other immune interventions for conditions like psoriasis or arthritis. Goldrath takes inspiration from the Allen efforts to create a brain atlas for the research community, an effort she would like to emulate for the human immune system in health and disease (in the scientific symposium, Goldrath showed impressive tools developed by her team to literally determined what the immune system looks like, in this case visualizing the mucosal immune system’s complex universe of singe cell data).
The second panel was chaired by CCII Professor Hiroyoshi Nishikawa and its theme was “Challenges Ahead for Cancer Research”.

The panel included (from left to right in the photo) Drew Pardoll (Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine), Vassiliki Boussiotis (Professor, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School), Suzanne Topalian (Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine), Ashok Venkitaraman, and Hiroyuki Mano.
Like Coutinho, Drew Pardoll also payed homage to the importance of creativity and “how creativity in an academic setting leads to new ideas that turn into therapies”. Pardoll told the audience how stunned he was at the success of the application of immunotherapy to microsatellite unstable tumors, a trial that emerged from a brainstorming session with geneticists. Pardoll discussed the need for basic research in academia, without the siloing of knowledge in individual project teams or departments often found in industry. “Maintaining the strength of the creative engine that exists in academic institutions like CCII, like what birthed PD-1, I see as a major systemic challenge that we have to address.”
Boussiotis mentioned the current challenges in extending cell-based therapies that have been successful in hematological malignancies to solid tumors. She pointed to irreversible tissue damage done to host tissues by engineered killer cells as a key limiting factor. Boussiotis discussed the metabolic and physiologic constraints imposed on T cells in the tissues. “Before we try to put more emphasis on the T cells,” Boussiotis said “we should think how we’re going to improve the microenvironment in which these T cells are going to work.”
Suzanne Topalian agreed with Michael Lenardo that the way forward will require the use of AI and machine learning tools, specifically to find new biomarkers for immunotherapy. Topalian said the need to study these biomarkers not in the blood, but in the tissues, because “that’s where all the action is”. Topalian later presented work, during the scientific symposium, on the importance of applying immunotherapy earlier in the development of cancer, a task that depends on identifying more reliable biomarkers.
“Immunology plays an important role in developing cancer,” said Hiroyuki Mano. Mano explained how the immune response selects evolving cancer clones long before diagnosis. Therefore, a major challenge is how to use the immune system more effectively for cancer prevention. Ashok Venkitaraman explored a similar theme, the accumulation of premalignant cells over decades or years. Venkitaraman discussed the molding of the evolving premalignant clones by the immune response, but also the evolving tumor’s ability to mold the host tissue and the host immune response. These complex interactions present opportunities for targeted combination therapies, according to Venkitaraman. He gave examples from his own field of genome instability, on how genome damage triggers innate immunity, which can in turn trigger more genome damage.
Overall, both panels painted a picture of cancer immunotherapy as a thriving field, but one that has arrived at a new stage, one that requires an understanding of the complexities of the interactions of the immune system, cancer cells, and the host tissues. The first successful era of immunotherapy turned cancer treatment upside down, by creating drugs that did not target tumor cells at all, but the immune system, unleashing it. As participants in both panels pointed out, we have now come to the point where understanding immune cells in isolation is not enough: we must understand their interactions with metabolism, tissue homeostasis and regeneration, tumor evolution and much more. In short, as Coutinho mentioned and Goldrath returned to, we now need to understand the immune response at the organism level.
As Ashok Venkitaraman reminded those in attendance at the opening ceremony, PD-1 and other immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies are not the end, it is merely the end of the beginning, expressing his hope that “CCII will remain at the forefront of the fight against cancer through developing new approaches to make immunotherapy even more effective for even more patients.”
These themes dominated the scientific symposium that followed the opening ceremony. With a lineup of many of cancer immunotherapy’s established leaders and rising stars, the symposium sessions tackled themes like T cell cellular therapies, immunometabolism, inflammation, tumor genetic diversity and evolution, tumor treatment susceptibility, and a variety of modern technological approaches. Speakers also presented exciting new technological approaches in immune cell manipulation, in vivo imaging, analysis of large datasets, machine learning approaches, model systems, and more.

Sidonia Fagarasan, CCII Vice-Director, closed the meeting. “We are all here because of Tasuku Honjo […] I was very touched by Mike Lenardo’s recollections of a young Japanese postdoc at NIH,” interested in fundamental research questions. She pointed out that these contributions would merit their own symposia, from the structure of human antibody genes to the discovery or the enzyme AID (activation induced cytidine deaminase). “Serendipity and curiosity brought Professor Honjo back to medicine. With the same persistence and creativity, he helped create life-saving therapies. For us at CCII, it is a very big challenge to build on this legacy,” she said. “Checkpoint inhibitor therapy saved many lives, but not many of the patients. The engineering triumph of CAR T cells now struggles to deal with solid tumors. We need to think about the adverse effects that sometimes lead patients to abandon therapy. The talks at this meeting highlighted the roots of the challenges we are facing. The complexity of the interactions between the immune system, the tumor, and the host. How ageing, diet, microbiota, genetic diversity, and many other biological variables will determine the outcome of antitumor therapies.”
“The success of cancer immunotherapy in the last decade has created enormous expectation from patients and their families, who look to immunology in the hope of a cure,” said Tasuku Honjo, opening the 1st CCII International Symposium on Immunotherapy and Immunobiology. “To push beyond these frontiers is our mission at CCII.”

VIP Voices
Take a look at what the VIPs Steve Sugino (President and Representative Director, Bristol-Myers Squibb K.K.), Mien-Chie Hung (President, China Medical University, Taiwan), Viktoria Li (Ambassador, Embassy of Sweden to Japan), and Ashok Venkitaraman (Distinguished Professor of Medicine, National University of Singapore) had to say about their hopes and expectations for our center.
CCII Researchers Reflect on the Opening Ceremony and the 1st International Symposium

The 1st CCII Symposium, held in our beautifully designed venue, was undoubtedly a scientifically significant event, featuring cutting-edge presentations by leading researchers from around the world. Beyond its scientific achievements, however, two memorable moments stood out, leaving a lasting impression on attendees.
The first was the moment when Professor Tasuku Honjo, the center’s director, stood up and walked to the stage, following a period of rehabilitation. His decision to walk, despite having spent a long time in a wheelchair, had been mentioned in a Nikkei Shimbun article prior to the event, highlighting his determination to achieve this goal. At over 80 years old, his fulfillment of this promise deeply inspired both domestic and international attendees, serving as a powerful testament to his resolve.
The second memorable moment occurred during the dinner reception, hosted at the former residence of Takeuchi Seiho, a celebrated Nihonga painter from Kyoto. The event featured warm hospitality and a live musical performance by an accomplished trio, who thoughtfully included pieces from the home countries of the international guests. This personalized touch delighted the attendees. The meticulous organization of the symposium, including this reception, was led by Professor Sidonia Fagarasan, whose efforts were widely recognized. At the event’s conclusion, many guests expressed their heartfelt gratitude to her.
While the symposium showcased world-class science, these deeply human moments added a unique and unforgettable dimension to the event, resonating deeply with all who attended.

It is with great pleasure and profound pride that I reflect on the recent opening ceremony of the CCII, a four-day international symposium that brought together the world’s leading immunologists.
This landmark event not only celebrated the launch of our new research center but also created a lively platform for scientific exchange and collaborative innovation. Each presentation at the symposium highlighted cutting-edge research in immunology, setting a tone of intellectual excitement and challenge. From breakthrough findings in cancer immunotherapy to innovative approaches in immune-modulation, the scientific discussions were both rigorous and motivating. I believe researchers shared insights that promise to reshape our understanding of cancer treatment and the immune response.
Beyond the formal sessions, the symposium’s informal interactions proved equally transformative. During coffee breaks and the reception on the first evening, participants transcended traditional boundaries. Experienced leaders and early-career scientists exchanged ideas in lively talks, creating a supportive atmosphere for knowledge sharing.
The poster session on the third day was also memorable. Surrounded by well-organized visual presentations, researchers engaged in open, energetic dialogues. Young scientists presented their work with passion, while established researchers offered productive feedback. This vibrant exchange underscored the symposium’s role in nurturing our scientific community’s growth and cultivating a supportive atmosphere that encourages shared learning.

A personal highlight was the evening banquet at a traditional hotel near the symposium venue. In an atmosphere of refined Japanese hospitality, accompanied by the elegant performances of maiko, I experienced a meaningful blend of scientific exchange and cultural appreciation. These moments reminded me that scientific progress is not only about data and discoveries, but also about human connections and shared passion.
As the symposium concluded, I was filled with renewed motivation. As a Principal Investigator at the CCII, I am more committed than ever to advancing our research and contributing to global progress in cancer immunology. The relationships formed, knowledge shared, and spirit of cooperation inspired during these four days will surely guide my future research directions. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all participants, the dedicated CCII staff who organized this event, and our esteemed Director, Professor Tasuku Honjo.

The first CCII Symposium was held on November 13-15 2024 at the Nitori Hall in our new CCII Bristol Myers Squibb building. It marked the official launch of this new research center at Kyoto University. As a member of CCII, I was lucky to attend the whole event and was very impressed.
The event was attended by top scientists from around the world — not only from cancer immunology, but also from broader cancer and immunology-related fields — who came together to celebrate the launch of CCII. Such an opportunity to hear from many of the world’s leading researchers in one place is rare in Japan, making this symposium unique and stimulating. The presentations were cutting-edge, and the discussions were inspiring. I realized that talking across disciplines helps us to understand how cancers and the immune system interact, which is important for developing new cancer therapies. The symposium also provided a great place to network. I met old colleagues and made new connections with other researchers. These interactions will hopefully lead to future collaborations.
The venue, the Nitori Hall, deserves special mention. The design was ideal for the symposium. The hall was the right size, neither too big nor too small, which made it easy for speakers and audience to interact and encouraged active discussion. I hope CCII will continue to host events like this, becoming a top place for cancer immunology research. By sharing our work and inviting top scientists to contribute, we can be a hub of innovation and collaboration. I am excited about CCII’s potential for growth and success in the future.