# Kenichi Shimada ## To deliver effective cancer therapy for more patients ![Kenichi Shimada](/sites/g/files/omnuum9236/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/kenichi_shimada/files/kenichi_shimada_nov_2021.jpg?itok=Zo7yXkIB) Kenichi Shimada is a Research Associate in [the Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology](https://hits.harvard.edu/the-program/laboratory-of-systems-pharmacology/about/) at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and has a joint appointment at [the Ludwig Center](https://ludwigcenter.hms.harvard.edu/) and at [the Guerriero Laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital](https://guerrierolab.bwh.harvard.edu/). He has a background in both experimental and computational biology. Kenichi received his Ph.D. for the elucidation of the mechanisms of ferroptosis, a form of non-apoptotic cell death phenotype, under the supervision of [Dr. Brent Stockwell](http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/StockwellLab/index/) at Columbia Univeristy. In 2015, he came to HMS and continued his training as a postdoctoral fellow with [Dr. Timothy Mitchison](https://mitchison.hms.harvard.edu/) and has published a few papers in mechanistic toxicology and cancer signaling. Since December 2020, Kenichi started to work with Drs. [Jennifer Guerriero](https://guerrierolab.bwh.harvard.edu/), [Joan Brugge](https://brugge.med.harvard.edu/), and [Peter Sorger](https://sorger.med.harvard.edu/) to elucidate tumor-intrinsic and extrinsic factors that predict clinical outcomes in breast cancer cohorts using single-cell transcriptome and multi-dimensional imaging. ## Recent Publications Download 6 citations download- [BibTeX](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters=&&&format=bibtex) - [EndNote X3 XML](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters=&&&format=endnote8) - [EndNote 7 XML](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters=&&&format=endnote7) - [Endnote tagged](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters=&&&format=tagged) - [Marc](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters=&&&format=marc) - [PubMedId](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters=&&&format=pubmed_id) - [RIS](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters=&&&format=ris) ### 2025 Wanderley CWS, Michaud DE, Shimada K, Nelson A, Fu J, Schnitt SJ, Tolaney SM, Mittendorf EA, Barroso-Sousa R, Waks A, et al. [APOE+ Tumor-Associated Macrophages and CD4-DOCK4 T Cells Reveal Distinct Microenvironmental Features in HER2-Low and HER2-0 Hormone Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer](https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.09.04.674072). bioRxiv. 2025. Wanderley CWS, Michaud DE, Shimada K, Nelson A, Fu J, Schnitt SJ, Tolaney SM, Mittendorf EA, Barroso-Sousa R, Waks A, et al. [APOE+ Tumor-Associated Macrophages and CD4-DOCK4 T Cells Reveal Distinct Microenvironmental Features in HER2-Low and HER2-0 Hormone Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer](https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.09.04.674072). bioRxiv. 2025. - add\_circle do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract Novel anti-HER2 antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), such as trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd), have shown efficacy in tumors with varying HER2 expression, including HER2-low and even tumors with minimal HER2 presence. This has sparked interest in the biology... ### 2024 Guerriero JL, Lin J-R, Pastorello R, Du Z, Chen Y-A, Townsend MG, Shimada K, Hughes ME, Ren S, Tayob N, et al. [Qualification of a multiplexed tissue imaging assay and detection of novel patterns of HER2 heterogeneity in breast cancer](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41523-023-00605-3). NPJ Breast Cancer. 2024;10(1). Guerriero JL, Lin J-R, Pastorello R, Du Z, Chen Y-A, Townsend MG, Shimada K, Hughes ME, Ren S, Tayob N, et al. [Qualification of a multiplexed tissue imaging assay and detection of novel patterns of HER2 heterogeneity in breast cancer](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41523-023-00605-3). NPJ Breast Cancer. 2024;10(1). - add\_circle do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract Emerging data suggests that HER2 intratumoral heterogeneity (ITH) is associated with therapy resistance, highlighting the need for new strategies to assess HER2 ITH. A promising approach is leveraging multiplexed tissue analysis techniques such as cyclic... Shimada K, Michaud DE, Cui YX, Zheng K, Goldberg J, Ju Z, Schnitt SJ, Pastorello R, Kania LD, Hoffer J, et al. [An estrogen receptor signaling transcriptional program linked to immune evasion in human hormone receptor-positive breast cancer](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.23.619172v1). bioRxiv. 2024. Shimada K, Michaud DE, Cui YX, Zheng K, Goldberg J, Ju Z, Schnitt SJ, Pastorello R, Kania LD, Hoffer J, et al. [An estrogen receptor signaling transcriptional program linked to immune evasion in human hormone receptor-positive breast cancer](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.23.619172v1). bioRxiv. 2024. - add\_circle do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract T cells are generally sparse in hormone receptor-positive (HR+) breast cancer, potentially due to limited antigen presentation, but the driving mechanisms of low T cell abundance remains unclear. Therefore, we defined and investigated programs (‘gene... ### 2021 Weng J-H, Koch PD, Luan H, Tu H-C, Shimada K, Ngan I, Ventura R, Jiang R, Mitchison T. [Colchicine acts selectively in the liver to induce hepatokines that inhibit myeloid cell activation](https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-021-00366-y). Nat Metab. 2021;3(4):513–522. doi:10.1038/s42255-021-00366-y Weng J-H, Koch PD, Luan H, Tu H-C, Shimada K, Ngan I, Ventura R, Jiang R, Mitchison T. [Colchicine acts selectively in the liver to induce hepatokines that inhibit myeloid cell activation](https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-021-00366-y). Nat Metab. 2021;3(4):513–522. doi:10.1038/s42255-021-00366-y - add\_circle do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract Colchicine has served as a traditional medicine for millennia and remains widely used to treat inflammatory and other disorders. Colchicine binds tubulin and depolymerizes microtubules, but it remains unclear how this mechanism blocks myeloid cell... Shimada K, Bachman J, Muhlich J, Mitchison T. [shinyDepMap, a tool to identify targetable cancer genes and their functional connections from Cancer Dependency Map data](https://elifesciences.org/articles/57116). Elife. 2021;10. doi:10.7554/eLife.57116 Shimada K, Bachman J, Muhlich J, Mitchison T. [shinyDepMap, a tool to identify targetable cancer genes and their functional connections from Cancer Dependency Map data](https://elifesciences.org/articles/57116). Elife. 2021;10. doi:10.7554/eLife.57116 - add\_circle do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract Individual cancers rely on distinct essential genes for their survival. The Cancer Dependency Map (DepMap) is an ongoing project to uncover these gene dependencies in hundreds of cancer cell lines. To make this drug discovery resource more accessible to... ### 2020 Stokes M, Small JC, Vasciaveo A, Shimada K, Hirschhorn T, Califano A, Stockwell B. [Mesenchymal subtype neuroblastomas are addicted to TGF-βR2/HMGCR-driven protein geranylgeranylation](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67310-0). Sci Rep. 2020;10(1):10748. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-67310-0 Stokes M, Small JC, Vasciaveo A, Shimada K, Hirschhorn T, Califano A, Stockwell B. [Mesenchymal subtype neuroblastomas are addicted to TGF-βR2/HMGCR-driven protein geranylgeranylation](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67310-0). Sci Rep. 2020;10(1):10748. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-67310-0 - add\_circle do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract The identification of targeted agents with high therapeutic index is a major challenge for cancer drug discovery. We found that screening chemical libraries across neuroblastoma (NBL) tumor subtypes for selectively-lethal compounds revealed metabolic... [ More arrow\_circle\_right ](/publications)