Winners of the 2022 JA Ōmura Awards for excellence

The Editorial Board of The Journal of Antibiotics has given the 2022 JA Ōmura Award for an original article to an outstanding paper entitled “Azithromycin, a 15-membered macrolide

antibiotic, inhibits influenza A(Hl N1)pdm09 virus infection by interfering with virus internalization process” by Tran et al. [1]. Historically, influenza pandemics have often caused

tremendous casualties: in 1918, Spanish influenza A(H1N1) led to a global pandemic, causing a catastrophe that killed an estimated 20–50 million people. In addition, several decades ago, a

new influenza A(H1Nl)pdm09 virus caused the most recent global pandemic. Clinically used neuraminidase inhibitors are effective against human influenza by inhibiting the production of

progeny viruses during the acute phase of infection. However, drug-resistant A(H1N1) viruses have been increasing and are now an emerging threat worldwide. Thus, new strategies are required

to prepare for the next global pandemic. Tran et al. found that azithromycin (AZM), a clinically used 15-membered ring macrolide antimicrobial agent, inhibits the internalization of

influenza A(H1 N1)pdm09 virus when it directly interacts with the virus before infection. As a result, replication of progeny viruses is markedly inhibited by blocking viral entry into host

cells during the early stages of the infection process. Furthermore, intranasal administration of AZM to mice infected with A(H1Nl)pdm09 virus successfully reduced the amount of virus in the

lungs and alleviated hypothermia induced by the infection. Because developing new anti-influenza drugs from scratch is a time-consuming process, repositioning of approved drugs is one of

the most effective strategies to identify new anti-influenza drugs in a short time. AZM may be prescribed to prevent both primary infection by influenza A virus and secondary infection by

bacteria.

The 2022 winner of the Ōmura Award for an original review article is “Splicing Modulators: on the Way from Nature to the Clinic” by Schneider-Poetsch et al. [2]. This review article examines

more than two decades of research on the discovery and application of splicing modulators and their function as chemical probes and drug candidates. Splicing is a fundamental process in

eukaryotes, which is not found in prokaryotes. Thus, it is not surprising that complex cytotoxic antibiotics targeting this mechanism have evolved. Antibiotic classes examined in this review

include spliceostatins, pladienolides, and herboxidienes. Synthetic analogs of these classes have become powerful probes for studying splicing and mRNA processing. The related splice-site

modifiers NVS-SM1/Branaplam and Risdiplam, which avoid overt toxicity and have shown impressive therapeutic benefits in the treatment of splicing disorders, are also discussed.

The review covers the initial splicing inhibitor discoveries and subsequent efforts to optimize the modulators, the identification of the spliceosome and its function, the cellular effects

of splicing modulation, ongoing clinical trials, new approaches such as the use of targeted protein degradation to manipulate this pathway, and RNA-binding modulators exemplified by those

that have been successfully developed to treat spinal muscular atrophy caused by splice variants. It concludes with an outlook for the future of the field.

This outstanding review is highly recommended to those interested in learning more about the current state of the art in research and development surrounding the discovery and development of

splicing modulators.

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The medal will be awarded to the first author of Article and Review article, and all of the authors will receive the certificates. Each first author’s short biography is as follows.

Dr Dat Tran is a Neonatal intensivist at the Neonatal Center at Vietnam National Children’s Hospital (VNCH). He received his bachelor’s degree (2011) at The Military Medical University in

Hanoi and has been working at the Intensive Care Unit in VNCH for over 13 years. He completed a Ph.D course in the Asia International Institute of Infectious Disease Control (ADC), Teikyo

Medical University (2015–2019). His group discovered a part of the Azithromycin antibiotic’s mechanisms on anti-influenza A (2009pdm) inhibition. His present research continues developing

new anti-influenza virus agents focusing on Azithromycin derivatives. His current position is vice-head of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in VNCH, and he is also interested in doing

clinical trial research on the neonatal population.

Dr Tilman Schneider-Poetsch received his bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California at Berkeley. He then continued his studies in the

biochemistry, cell and molecular biology (BCMB) graduate program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. There he worked on small molecule inhibitors of protein biosynthesis

under the supervision of Jun O. Liu in the department of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences. Upon receiving his PhD, he embarked on a postdoctoral fellowship to Japan, working in the

Chemical Genetics Laboratory at RIKEN under Minoru Yoshida and then continuing as a tenured staff scientist in the Chemical Genomics Research group at RIKEN’s Center for Sustainable Resource

Science (CSRS). His research interests include small molecule modulators of gene expression, especially mRNA splicing, protein synthesis and protein homeostasis. Furthermore, he works as a

part-time lecturer at Waseda University, teaching a semester-long undergraduate course on chemical biology.

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