Shingo Iwami

Research Overview

Quantitative Population Dynamics during Course of Life -from birth to death-

Through the course of life, from the moment of birth till death, an organism will achieve various states of equilibrium or ‘homeostasis’ which will inevitably encounter perturbations. The processes of cell growth, differentiation, infection, mutation, evolution and adaptation work together as a coordinated ‘system’, described by mathematical models for population dynamics, to maintain a healthy state. Any disruptions to this system leads to disease including infection, allergy, cancer, and aging. I am conducting interdisciplinary research to elucidate “Quantitative Population Dynamics” through the course of life with original mathematical theory and computational simulation, which are both our CORE approach. Our mathematical model-based approach has quantitatively improved a current gold-standard approach essentially relying on the statistical analysis of “snapshot data” during dynamic interaction processes in life sciences research. Integrating current high-throughput technics including next-generation sequencer and mathematical sciences, we would like to make a paradigm shift in future life sciences research. Our developing approach could be applied to population dynamics of virus infections, immune system (e.g. differentiation process from hematopoietic stem cell or other specific immune cell) and to other aspects of cancer progression in terms of quantitative understandings for complex life phenomena including different time-scales and multi-layer data.

Fig 1: Quantitative Population Dynamics during Course of Life —from birth to death—

Biography

B.S. Osaka Prefecture University, Japan, 2005 (Mathematics and Physics)
M.S. Osaka Prefecture University, Japan, 2007 (Mathematical Biology)
Ph.D. Shizuoka University, Japan, 2009 (Mathematical Biology)
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists, DC1 (2007.4-2009.3)
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists, PD (2009.4-2009.9)
Japan Science and Technology Agency, PRESTO Researcher (2009.10-2013.3)
Japan Science and Technology Agency, PRESTO Researcher (2014.10- 2018.3)
INSERM, U941, Paris, France, Visiting Professor (2015.10-2016.3)
Department of Biology, Kyushu University, Associate Professor (2011.11-2021.3)
Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology (ASHBi), Kyoto University, Collaborative researcher (2020.4-Current)
NEXT-Ganken Program, Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research (JFCR), Visiting Researcher (2020.4-Current)
interdisciplinary Biology Laboratory (iBLab), Division of Natural Science, Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Professor (2021.4-Current)
Institute of Mathematics for Industry, Kyushu University, Guest Professor (2021.4-Current)
Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences Program (iTHEMS), RIKEN, Visiting Scientists (2021.7-Current)
International Research Center for Neurointelligence (IRCN), The University of Tokyo, Collaborative researcher (2023.7-Current)

Publications

W. S. Hart, H. Park, Y. D. Jeong, K. S. Kim, R. Yoshimura, R. N. Thompson† and S. Iwami†, Analysis of the risk and pre-emptive control of viral outbreaks accounting for within-host dynamics: SARS-CoV-2 as a case study, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 120(41):e2305451120 (2023). († Equal contribution)

Y.D. Jeong†, K. Ejima†, K.S. Kim†, J. Woo, S. Iwanami, Y. Fujita, IH. Jung, K. Aihara, K. Shibuya, S. Iwami, A.I. Bento and M. Ajelli, Designing isolation guidelines for COVID-19 patients with rapid antigen tests, Nature Communications, 13:4910(2022). (†Equal contribution)

Y. D. Jeong†, K. Ejima†, K. S. Kim†, S. Iwanami, A. I. Bento, Y. Fujita, I. H. Jung, K. Aihara, K. Watashi, T. Miyazaki, T. Wakita, S. Iwami, M. Ajelli. Revisiting the guidelines for ending isolation for COVID-19 patients, eLife, 10:e69340 (2021). (†Equal contribution)

S. Iwanami†, K. Ejima†*, K.S. Kim, K. Noshita, Y. Fujita, T. Miyazaki, S. Kohno, Y. Miyazaki, S. Morimoto, S. Nakaoka, Y. Koizumi, Y. Asai, K. Aihara, K. Watashi, R. N. Thompson, K. Shibuya, K. Fujiu, A.S. Perelson‡, S. Iwami‡*, T. Wakita. Detection of significant antiviral drug effects on COVID-19 with reasonable sample sizes in randomized controlled trials: A modeling study, PLOS Medicine, 18(7):e1003660 (2021). (†,‡Equal contribution)

KS Kim†, K Ejima†, S Iwanami, Y Fujita, H Ohashi, Y Koizumi, Y Asai, S Nakaoka, K Watashi, K Aihara, RN. Thompson, R Ke, AS Perelson‡ and S. Iwami‡. A quantitative model used to compare within-host SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV dynamics provides insights into the pathogenesis and treatment of SARS-CoV-2, PLOS Biology, 19(3):e3001128. (2021). (†,‡Equal contribution).

S. Iwanami, K. Kitagawa, H. Ohashi, Y. Asai, K. Shionoya, W. Saso, K. Nishioka, H. Inaba, S. Nakaoka, T. Wakita, O. Diekmann, *S. Iwami†, *K. Watashi†. Should a viral genome stay in the host cell or leave? A quantitative dynamics study of how hepatitis C virus deals with this dilemma, PLOS Biology, 18:e3000562 (2020). (†Equal contribution/Corresponding author).

M. Mahgoub, J. Yasunaga, S. Iwami, S. Nakaoka, Y. Koizumi, K. Shimura, M. Matsuoka. Sporadic on/off switching of HTLV-1 Tax expression is crucial to maintain the whole population of virus-induced leukemic cells, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(6):E1269-E1278 (2018).

Y. Koizumi, H. Ohashi, S. Nakajima, Y. Tanaka, T. Wakita, AS. Perelson, *S. Iwami†, *K. Watashi†. Quantifying antiviral activity optimizes drug combinations against hepatitis C virus infection, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114: 1922-1927 (2017). (†Equal contribution/Corresponding author)

K. Fujiu†, M. Shibata†, Y. Nakayama, F. Ogata, S. Matsumoto, K. Noshita, S. Iwami, S. Nakae, I. Komuro, R. Nagai, and I. Manabe. A heart-brain-kidney network controls adaptation to cardiac stress through tissue macrophage activation, Nature Medicine, 23:611-622 (2017).

*S. Iwami†, JS Takeuchi†, S Nakaoka, F Mammano, F Clavel, H Inaba, T Kobayashi, N Misawa, K Aihara, Y Koyanagi, *K Sato. Cell-to-cell infection by HIV contributes over half of virus infection, Elife, 4, (2015). (†Equal contribution/Corresponding author)

Awards

Best paper award, The Japan Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (2010),
Young Research Award, Japan Society of Mathematical Biology (2010)