Kohsaku Kawakami
Scientist
National Institute for Materials Science
Japan
Biography
Kohsaku Kawakami is currently working for National Institute for Materials Science in Japan, where he is leading Medical Soft Matter Group. His interest is in basic science and development of amorphous dosage forms, and also on development of a novel drug carrier using phospholipids. He has published more than 130 papers and book chapters, and has given more than 120 invited lectures. He was working for pharmaceutical companies including Merck and Co. and Shionogi and Co. for 13 years as a Senior Scientist prior to joining the current organization, where he was taking care of physicochemical characterization, formulation studies, and DDS studies for new chemical entities. He was in University of Connecticut, School of Pharmacy from 2001 to 2002 as a Visiting Scholar. He holds a PhD in chemical engineering from Kyoto University.
Research Interest
He is designing nano/micron-sized particles for efficient oral/pulmonary drug delivery via bottom-up process including spray-dry and electrospray methods. Efficient pulmonary drug delivery can be achieved only with good inhalation devices, which is of his interest as well.He has developed various colloidal carriers for drug delivery systems including liposomes and microemulsions. Improvement of their functions and elucidation of their action mechanism in vivo are being conducted.