Cordyceps militaris has been known to produce an anticancer agent, cordycepin. Investigation on optimum culture condition for C. militaris had been performed. In the research program for discovering a novel function in the culture of C. militaris, the culture media was applied to a proliferation assays using various cell lines. The media showed significant anti-proliferative activities against al cell lines, especially to human leukemia cell line HL-60. The activity-guided purification of active ingredient was performed to obtain uracil. To the best of our knowledge, uracil has not been reported to possess anti-proliferative activity. However, the uracil obtained from the culture media was subjected to ICP-MS analysis to reveal that sodium, potassium and magnesium were found to co-exist with uracil, which might show anti-proliferative activity. Further study on the mechanism of the expression of the activity is now underway.

　　Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene mutation examination is now performed in most medical institutions in order to select the molecular targeted medicine for lung cancer. It became clear that the positive rate of the biopsy material was lower than that of the surgical sample in this hospital. The cause was attributed to false negatives due to low tumor cell content in biopsy specimens. We investigated the presence of the mutation using surgical samples and preoperative biopsy specimens from the same patients in 13 cases. Furthermore, we investigated the tumor cell content of the biopsy specimens by cell counting. Results showed that 3 of 6 biopsy specimens that were associated with positive surgical samples were judged to be negative. The tumor cell content was less than 5% in all negative cases. Regarding EGFR gene mutation examination, we should carefully determine tumor cell content when using biopsy specimens.