About the Authors
- Kenzo Ichimura
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Affiliation Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Kyushu University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Fukuoka, Japan
- Tetsuya Matoba
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Affiliation Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Kyushu University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Fukuoka, Japan
- Kaku Nakano
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Affiliation Department of Cardiovascular Research, Development, and Translational Medicine, Center for Cardiovascular Disruptive Innovation, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
- Masaki Tokutome
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Affiliation Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Kyushu University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Fukuoka, Japan
- Katsuya Honda
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Affiliation Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Kyushu University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Fukuoka, Japan
- Jun-ichiro Koga
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Affiliation Department of Cardiovascular Research, Development, and Translational Medicine, Center for Cardiovascular Disruptive Innovation, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
- Kensuke Egashira
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* E-mail: egashira@cardiol.med.kyushu-u.ac.jp
Affiliation Department of Cardiovascular Research, Development, and Translational Medicine, Center for Cardiovascular Disruptive Innovation, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
Competing Interests
Dr. Egashira is the inventor of an issued patent on the results reported in the present study (Pharmaceutical composition containing statin-encapsulated nanoparticle, WO 2008/026702). Applicants for this patent include Kyushu University (http://imaq.kyushu-u.ac.jp/), KOWA Inc (http://www.kowa.co.jp), and Sentan Medical Inc (http://sentaniryou.co.jp). Sentan Medical Inc is a drug discovery venture company from Kyushu University and approved by the intellectual property division of Kyushu University. Dr. Egashira is an employee of Kyushu University and also a founder of Sentan Medical Inc, possessing stocks, and serves as one of Directors of the company. The intellectual property division of Kyushu University is appropriately managing conflict of interests of Dr. Egashira on a monthly basis. In other words, the intellectual property division of Kyushu University is reviewing that Sentan Medical Inc did not play a direct role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript in Dr. Egashira’s Laboratory. Therefore, this does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. The other authors contributed to the present study as employees (Tetsuya Matoba, Kaku Nakano, Jun-ichiro Koga) or post-graduate students (Kenzo Ichimura, Masaki Tokutome, Katsuya Honda) of Kyushu University, and have declared that no competing interests exist.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: KI TM KN KE. Performed the experiments: KI KN MT KH. Analyzed the data: KI TM JK KE. Wrote the paper: KI TM JK KE.