FUJIFILM Corporation

While the Fujifilm name may be synonymous with excellence in camera technology, the company is also passionate about translating advances in fundamental science research into innovative biomedical solutions and therapeutics. Since 2019, when the company made a $1 million gift to HMS, 11 PhD candidates have received the Fujifilm Fellowship, which awards two years of research funding to promising students from across the nine HMS-based life sciences PhD programs. Now, Fujifilm is renewing its support, making a gift of $1.5 million to create additional fellowship opportunities.

“Fujifilm’s deep partnership with Harvard Medical School continues to grow as we both relentlessly pursue the development and discovery of new medicines that will, one day, cure diseases around the world,” says Teiichi Goto, president and CEO of FUJIFILM Corporation (Fujifilm). “Our company is inspired and motivated by the work of these exceptional doctoral fellows, who are preparing for their life-transforming work. The Fujifilm Fellowship at Harvard Medical School is fueled by our mutual ‘Genki’—our passion, drive, and energy to achieve medical goals that were previously unachievable.”

The fellowship program is designed to equip young scientists with the specialized skills needed to translate their research findings into real medical solutions for patients. In addition to their PhD program, the Fujifilm Fellows are enrolled in the Therapeutics Graduate Program, a new curriculum that focuses on pharmacology, toxicology, and drug discovery. Students in the program receive rigorous multidisciplinary training in identifying and developing novel therapeutics, understanding and investigating mechanisms of drug action, analyzing the reasons for clinical failures, and developing new compounds and applying them in preclinical and clinical studies to improve the treatment of disease.

A pipeline of pioneers
Thanks to the additional support from Fujifilm, Kailyn Doiron and Kanae Sasaki were named in August as the summer 2021 recipients of the Fujifilm Fellowship. Doiron, a first-generation college student and a third-year student in the Systems, Synthetic, and Quantitative Biology PhD Program, works in the lab of Pamela Silver, PhD, the Elliott T. and Onie H. Adams Professor of Biochemistry and Systems Biology, in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS. She strives to develop novel protein-based therapeutics to address the unmet medical need for safe and effective chronic and inflammatory pain treatments. Doiron says she is excited by the recent success of newly approved protein therapeutics for treating migraines, as they show promising evidence for the future of protein-based chronic pain drugs.

“I was incredibly honored when I heard that I had been named a Fujifilm Fellow,” says Doiron. “I immediately shared the great news with my biggest cheerleaders: my family. I am very thankful to Fujifilm for the support and cannot wait to share my experience and findings with the scientific community.”

After an exciting experience working with an off-target detection platform for CRISPR/ Cas9 gene editing technology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Sasaki decided to join Harvard’s Biological and Biomedical Sciences PhD Program. She is now studying gene therapy for a retinal degenerative disease, retinitis pigmentosa (RP), in the lab of Constance Cepko, PhD, the Bullard Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS.

RP, which affects about 1 in 4,000 people, causes night blindness and can eventually lead to complete blindness. Sasaki hopes that her efforts to develop gene therapies that prolong photoreceptor cell survival can help these patients retain their sight and improve their quality of life.

“I’m very grateful to see that such a famous company is willing to invest not only in the science but also the development of researchers,” says Sasaki.

This article originally appeared in the fall 2021 issue of Pulse, the biannual newsletter of the Harvard Medical School Office of Alumni Affairs and Development, which celebrates the heart and impact of the HMS community