Michael BennettDirector of Business Development, Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult Michael Bennett is the Director of Business Development at the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult and a member of the executive management team. In addition to managing worldwide business development, he is responsible for the intellectual property portfolio, legal and contractual obligations of the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult. An experienced negotiator who has closed tens of multi-million US dollar revenue generating agreements such as in and out licences and settlement agreements. |
Keisuke GodaProfessor of Chemistry, University of Tokyo and Adjunct Professor, Wuhan University Keisuke Goda is a professor of chemistry at the University of Tokyo. He obtained a BA degree from UC Berkeley summa cum laude in 2001 and a PhD from MIT in 2007, both in physics. At MIT, he worked on the development of gravitational-wave detectors in the LIGO group which led to the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics. After several years of work on high-speed imaging and microfluidics at Caltech and UCLA, he joined the University of Tokyo as a professor. His research group focuses on the development of serendipity-enabling technologies based on molecular imaging and spectroscopy together with microfluidics and computational analytics. His pioneering work has been published in a number of top journals such as Nature and Cell. He has received numerous honors and prizes including Japan Academy Medal, Yomiuri Gold Medal, and JSPS Prize. |
Hiromitsu NakauchiProf of Genetics, Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine Project Professor, The Institute of Medical Science, Division of Stem Cell Therapy, Distinguished Professor Unit, The University of Tokyo After earning M.D. and a Ph.D. in Japan, Dr. Nakauchi went to Stanford University as a postdoctoral scholar and isolated CD8 genes. After returning to Japan, he started working on hematopoietic stem cells in his laboratory at RIKEN. In 1994, he became a Professor of Immunology at the University of Tsukuba where he demonstrated that a single hematopoietic stem cell could reconstitute the entire hematopoietic system, a definitive experimental proof for the “stemness”. Since April 2002, he has been a Professor of Stem Cell Therapy in the Institute of Medical Science at The University of Tokyo (IMSUT). In 2014, he returned to Stanford University as a faculty to continue his stem cell research at the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. Goals of his work are to translate discoveries in basic research into practical medical applications. |
Takahiro OchiyaProfessor, Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, Tokyo Medical University Dr. Takahiro Ochiya was a Chief of Division of Molecular and Cellular Medicine at the National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo since 2011 and he is currently appointed as professor of Tokyo Medical University (since 2018). After he got Ph.D. in 1988 in Osaka University and then went to do a post-doc at La Jolla Cancer Research (Burnham Institute for Medical Research), CA, USA. Dr. Ochiya’s lab focuses the development of novel animal models, methods, and strategies to study cancer development and metastasis. Especially, current focuses are siRNA- and microRNA-based therapy against cancer stem cells. Dr. Ochiya is one of top scientist in Exosome research in cancer area and carries President of Japanese Society of Extracellular Vesicles (JSEV) since 2014. |
Hideyuki OkanoProfessor, Department of Physiology, Keio University School of Medicine Hideyuki Okano received M.D. in 1983 and Ph.D. in 1988 from Keio University. He held post doctoral position at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has appointed full professors at Tsukuba University School of Medicine in 1994, Osaka University School of Medicine in 1997, and returned to Keio University Medical School in 2001 as a full professor of Physiology. Since 2007, he has been a Dean of Keio University Graduate School of Medicine or a Dean of Keio University School of Medicine. In 2009, his group developed a transgenic technology of common marmoset (Sasaki et al., Nature, 2009). He has been a Project Leader of Brain/MINDS since 2014. |
Terry RissSenior Product Manager, Cell Health, Promega Corporation Dr. Terry Riss started the Cell Biology program at Promega Corporation in 1990 and held several R&D and Project Management positions since. Dr. Riss managed development of cell viability, cytotoxicity, apoptosis, and protease assay systems and lead efforts to identify and promote multiplexing of cell-based assays to determine the mechanism of cell death. Dr. Riss now serves as Senior Product Manager, Cell Health involved in outreach educational training activities including validating assay systems applied to 3D cell culture models. Dr. Riss also serves as an editor of the In Vitro Cell-Based Assays section of the Assay Guidance Manual hosted by The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) at the NIH. |
Yoshitsugu ShitakaPresident, Astellas Institute for Regenerative Medicine Yoshitsugu Shitaka, Ph.D., has been Corporate Executive of Astellas Pharma Inc. since June 2018 and has been President of Astellas Institute for Regenerative Medicine (AIRM), which was established following Astellas’ acquisition of Ocata Therapeutics, since May 2016. Prior to that, Dr. Shitaka served as Head of New Product Science Strategy, Product & Portfolio Strategy at Astellas Pharma Inc. in 2015. He served as Therapeutic Area Head, Frontier Disease Research Unit, Drug Discovery Research from 2012 to 2015. He joined Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical, Co., Ltd. (Yamanouchi became a part of Astellas Pharma Inc. in April 2005) in 1996 where he held scientific and management positions of increasing responsibility in Neuroscience, Drug Discovery Research until 2012. He was Visiting Scientist of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis from 2009 to 2010. He received his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Tokyo in 1991, 1993, and 1996, respectively. He has been Vice Chairman of Forum for Innovative Regenerative Medicine (FIRM) since June 2018. |
Kunihiko SuzukiVice Chairman & Member of the Board, Medinet Co. Ltd., Vice Chair, Forum for Innovative Regenerative Medicine (FIRM) Kunihiko Suzuki serves as Vice Chairman for FIRM (Forum for Innovative Regenerative Medicine), which plays a role as the Japanese industrial association to promote commercialization & industrialization of regenerative medicine/cell therapies. Mr. Suzuki (Vice Chairman & Member of the Board of MEDINET Co., Ltd.) participates into FIRM from MEDINET – was established in 1995 and started its operation in 1999, a company specializing in cell manufacturing and related services in immuno-cell therapy for cancer patients and also acting as a contract development & manufacturing organization (CDMO) for both private and public sectors including hospitals, clinics and academia. |
Masayo TakahashiProfessor, RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research Masayo Takahashi received her M.D. in 1986, and her Ph.D. in 1992 from Kyoto University. After an assistant professor in the Department of Ophthalmology, Kyoto University Hospital, she moved to the Salk Institute in 1995, where she discovered the potential of stem cells as a tool for retinal therapy. She returned to Kyoto University Hospital in 1997, and was appointed associate professor at the Translational Research Center in the same hospital in 2001. She joined the RIKEN as a team leader of the Lab for Retinal Regeneration in 2006. In 2013, her team launched a pilot clinical study of autologous iPS cell-derived RPE cell sheets for exudative aged-related macular degeneration (AMD), and performed the first RPE cell sheet graft transplantation in Sept. 2014. In 2017, the team started using allogeneic iPS cells suspension in the clinical study. Her clinical specialty is retinal disease-specifically, macular diseases and retinal hereditary diseases. Her aim is to understand these diseases at a fundamental level and develop retinal regeneration therapies. |
Shoji TakeuchiProfessor, Center For International Research on Integrative Biomedical Systems (CIBiS), Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo Shoji Takeuchi received the B.E, M.E., and Dr. Eng. degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1995, 1997, and 2000, respectively. He is currently a Professor in the Center for International Research on Integrative Biomedical Systems (CIBiS), Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), University of Tokyo. Since 2008, he is a director of Collaborative Research Center for Bio/Nano Hybrid Process at IIS. His current research interests include membrane protein chips, bottom-up tissue engineering and biohybrid MEMS. He received several awards including Young Scientists' Prize, the Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in 2008, the JSPS prize from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 2010. |
