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Tomoko Kaneko-Tarui, MD, PhD


Programs + Specialties
Training + Education Yamagata University School of Medicine; Yamagata University Graduate School of Medicine
Gender Female
Accepted Insurances View Accepted Insurances at Tufts Medical Center

1997 – 2001, Scholar, The Japan Scholarship Foundation
1999, Memorial Award of World Congress on In Vitro Fertilization, The Japan Society of Fertilization and Implantation
2001, Young Investigator Award, Yamagata University Venture Business Laboratory
2002-2003, Postdoctoral Fellowship of Child and Maternal Health and Reproductive Medicine, Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, Japan
2003, Lalor Foundation Postdoctoral Travel Fellowship, the Society for the Study of Reproduction
2004-2005, Post-doctoral Fellowship Award for Studying Abroad, The Uehara Memorial Foundation

For a complete list of Dr. Kaneko-Tarui's publications, see here: Full list

Selected Publications: 


Tanaka Y, Park JH, Tanwar PS, Kaneko-Tarui T, Mittal S, Lee HJ, Teixeira JM Deletion of Tuberous Sclerosis 1 in Somatic Cells of the Murine Reproductive Tract Causes Female Infertility. Endocrinology, 2012;153(1):404 416.

Tanwar PS*, Kaneko-Tarui T*, Zhang L, Teixeira JM Stromal Liver Kinase B1 [STK11] Signaling loss Induces Oviductal Adenomas and Endometrial Cancer by Activating Mammalian Target of Rapamycin Complex 1. Plos Genet 2012;8(8):e1002906. (*Co-first authors)

Tanwar PS, Kaneko-Tarui T, Zhang L, Teixeira (2012) Altered LKB1/AMPK/TSC1/TSC2/mTOR signaling causes disruption of Sertoli cell polarity and spermatogenesis. Hum Mol Genet, 21(20):4394-4054.

Tanwar PS, Kaneko-Tarui T, Lee HJ, Zhang L, Teixeira JM (2013) PTEN loss and HOXA10 expression are associated with ovarian endometrioid adenocarcinoma differentiation and progression. Carcinogenesis, 34(4):893-901.

Tanwar PS, Mohapatra G, Chiang S, Engler DA, Zhang L, Kaneko-Tarui T, Ohguchi Y, Birrer MJ, Teixeira JM (2013) Loss of LKB1 and PTEN tumor suppressor genes in the ovarian surface epithelium induces papillary serous ovarian cancer. Carcinogenesis, 35(3):546-53
Kaneko-Tarui T, Commandeur AE, Patterson AL, et al. Hyperplasia and fibrosis in mice with conditional loss of the TSC2 tumor suppressor in Müllerian duct mesenchyme-derived myometria. Mhr Basic Sci Reproductive Medicine 2014;20(11):1126 1134.

Yen E, Kaneko-Tarui T, Ruthazer R, Harvey-Wilkes K, Hassaneen M, Maron JL. Sex-Dependent Gene Expression in Infants with Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome. J Pediatrics 2019

Bartolome R, Kaneko-Tarui T, Maron J, Zimmerman E. The Utility of Speech-Language Biomarkers to Predict Oral Feeding Outcomes in the Premature Newborn. Am J Speech-lang Pat 2020;29(2S):1022–9.

Yen E, Kaneko-Tarui T, Maron JL. Technical Considerations and Protocol Optimization for Neonatal Salivary Biomarker Discovery and Analysis. Frontiers Pediatrics 2021;8:618553.

Alvarado-Flores F, Kaneko-Tarui T, Beyer W, et al. Placental miR-3940-3p is Associated With Maternal Insulin Resistance in Late Pregnancy. J Clin Endocrinol Metabolism 2021

Dr. Tomoko Kaneko-Tarui was trained as an OB/GYN physician specializing in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility and studied reproductive biology and redox biology in the Fujii lab and Saito lab at the Yamagata University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan.  When she moved to the US, she studied the mechanisms of the programmed cell death pathway of apoptosis in reproductive tissues to control the timing of natural menopause as well as the prevention of infertility and premature menopause in female cancer patients and identification and characterization of female stem germ cells, mentored by Dr. Jonathan Tilly at Vincent Center of Reproductive Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital.

After a family-related leave, she studied Müllerian duct biology, mentored by Dr. Jose Teixeira's lab at the Vincent Center of Reproductive Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital. The studies included (1) the signaling mechanisms common on Wnt/ β-catenin and PI3L in the gonads and uterus and the pathophysiological consequences when they are dysregulated, which might be an underlying cause of uterine fibroid development and gonadal and endometrial cancers, and (2) identification of the uterine stem/progenitor cells and the effects on the uterine development.

She joined the MIRI in 2017 and works with all our investigators. With Dr. Maron and Dr. Yen, she studies non-invasive salivary transcriptomic analysis to understand premature babies' feeding readiness and the impact of prenatal opioid exposure. With Dr. O'Tierney-Ginn, she focuses on the epigenetic effect of maternal obesity on their offspring.

Tomoko Kaneko-Tarui, MD

Dr. Tomoko Kaneko-Tarui of MIRI gets Charlton Award

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Tomoko Kaneko-Tarui

Tomoko Kaneko-Tarui on CNBC

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Tufts University School of Medicine Charlton Award
2022
The microRNA profiles in the umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells born from obese and lean mothers.
Goal: to elucidate the effect of maternal obesity on epigenetic regulation in neonates by profiling microRNA in umbilical cord-derived Mesenchymal stem cells (uMSCs).
Role: PI