Toshiro Sato

Toshiro Sato co-developed the intestinal organoid culture system with Hans Clevers and has been a pioneer in translating patient-derived organoid technology to clinical cancer medicine. His laboratory demonstrated that tumor organoids can be established from endoscopic biopsies and surgical specimens with high efficiency, enabling functional drug screening within clinically relevant timeframes. He has shown that organoid drug sensitivity predicts patient treatment outcomes in colorectal and gastric cancers, providing evidence for organoid-guided precision oncology. His work on niche factor independence in cancer organoids has revealed how tumors escape stem cell niche dependency through oncogenic pathway activation.