In 1974, Prof. Seiji Morisawa started the First Department of Biochemistry at Osaka City University Medical School. From 1992 to 2011, Prof. Masayasu Inoue succeeded as head of the laboratory. Then, in 2016, Dr. Fuminori Tokunaga took over as professor, and changed the name of the laboratory to the Department of Pathobiochemistry. In 2022, the name of the laboratory was changed to Department of Medical Biochemistry with the establishment of Osaka Metropolitan University.

At present, our laboratory investigates the physiological roles of selective post-translational modifications, including protein ubiquitination, and their involvement in different disorders. Most notably, we discovered LUBAC ubiquitin ligase, which specifically generates head-to-tail linked linear polyubiquitin chains and activates the NF-κB signaling pathway. NF-κB is a pivotal transcription factor family that regulates immune and inflammatory responses and anti-apoptosis. Aberrant NF-κB activation is involved in multiple diseases such as cancers and metabolic syndrome as well as inflammatory, autoimmune, and neurodegenerative diseases. Therefore, the NF-κB pathway is an important therapeutic target to treat these disorders. Our current focus is on LUBAC and linear ubiquitination-mediated regulation of immune and inflammatory responses, programmed cell death, and selective autophagy, and we are examining their relationships with diseases using biochemical, molecular and cell biology techniques as well as genetically modified mice.