Mari Dezawa's Biography

Mari Dezawa, Professor and Chair

Prof. Mari Dezawa graduated Chiba University School of Medicine in 1989, awarded the degree of MD.
She worked as a resident in Department of Internal Medicine and Cardiology in Chiba University hospital for two years and then she got PhD degree in 1995. She became a research associate of Department of Anatomy in Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine where she started to clarify the mechanism of neural regeneration. She then moved to Department of Anatomy Yokohama City University as Assistant Professor in 2000 where she started to work with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). After moving to Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine as Associate Professor in 2003, she discovered methods to induce neurons and skeletal muscle cells from human MSCs (J. Clin. Invest, 2004; Science, 2005).
In 2008, she became Professor and Chair of Department of Stem Cell Biology and Histology and Department of Anatomy and Anthropology in Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine. Recently, she discovered a novel type of intrinsic human pluripotent stem cells which are named Muse cells that reside in normal adult mesenchymal tissues (PNAS, 2010, 2011).