Speakers

Ryoichiro Kageyama
RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, Japan

Dr. Kageyama graduated from Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine and later earned his PhD in Medicine from the same institution. He served as Professor at the Institute for Virus Research (now the Institute for Life and Medical Sciences), Kyoto University and Deputy Director at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS), Kyoto University, before moving to RIKEN to assume the position of Director of the Center for Brain Science. He was appointed to the role of Director of the BDR as well as Team Director of the Laboratory for Neural Stem Cell Research in April 2025. His research focuses on neural development and segmentation in mammals, with a particular emphasis on uncovering the mechanism of the "biological clock that ticks every two hours." By studying the genes that regulate developmental processes, he is working to explore ways to reactivate neural stem cells in the adult brain.

Kota Abe
Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, The University of Osaka, Japan

Kota Abe is an assistant professor at the research institute for microbial disease, the university of Osaka. He completed his PhD study on the developmental biology using medaka fish under the guidance of Dr. Hiroyuki Takeda at the university of Tokyo in 2019. He joined Tohru Ishitani’s lab of the University of Osaka and has been studying mechanisms of organismal aging using ultra-short-lived vertebrate model, African turquoise killifish.

Koji Ando
National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, Japan

Koji Ando received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Tohoku University in 2014. During his doctoral studies, he also worked at the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center (NCVC), where he continued as a postdoctoral fellow until 2016. Since then, he developed his interests in regulatory mechanisms underlying cardiovascular development and homeostasis. From 2016 to 2019, he joined Professor Christer Betsholtz’s group at Uppsala University, Sweden, focusing on vascular biology and especially on capillary pericytes. He moved to the Institute for Advanced Medical Research, Nippon Medical School, in 2019 and returned to NCVC in 2022. He now focuses on elucidating the development and function of pericytes using fish and mouse models.

Kana Aoki
Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, The University of Osaka, Japan

Kana Aoki graduated from the Department of Biology at Kyushu University in 2015. She worked on elucidating the mechanism of interaction between plasma membrane and actin cytoskeleton during bleb-based cancer cell migration under the supervision of Prof. Junichi Ikenouchi as a JSPS Research Fellow (DC1), and obtained her PhD from the Graduate School of Systems Life Sciences, Kyushu University in 2020. She moved to Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, The University of Osaka as a JSPS Research Fellow (PD) in 2021, and started her current studies investigating the mechanisms of cell competition to correct Wnt morphogen gradient formation using zebrafish embryo in the group of Prof. Tohru Ishitani. She was appointed as Specially Appointed Assistant Professor in 2024. Recent work has focused on how mechanical intercellular interactions and cell movements maintain tissue pattern robustness during development.

Rory Thomas Cerbus
RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, Japan

Rory Cerbus is a Research Scientist at RIKEN BDR in Kobe, Japan, working jointly with Ichiro Hiratani and Kyogo Kawaguchi on comparative genomics and anatomy. He received his PhD in physics from the University of Pittsburgh (USA), where he studied two-dimensional fluid mechanics with Walter Goldburg using soap films. He later investigated transitional pipe flow as a Staff Scientist at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Japan with Pinaki Chakraborty. He then held a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship at the Université de Bordeaux in France, working with Hamid Kellay on granular flows and landslides.
His recent research focuses on inter-species patterns in vertebral counts that may be governed by developmental (Hox) genes, as well as conservation principles in genome folding. He can often be found staring at Hi-C contact maps or skeletons in natural history museums.

Hajime Fukui
Institute of Advanced Medical Sciences, Tokushima University, Japan

Hajime Fukui is a principal group leader at the Institute of Advanced Medical Sciences, Tokushima University since 2023. He obtained Ph.D. (biostudies) from Kyoto University in 2009. From 2009 to 2012, he was an assistant professor at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine. He then moved to the lab of Dr. Naoki Mochizuki at the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center (NCVC) Research Institute (as a staff scientist in 2012-2017 and 2020-2021, followed by as a laboratory chief in 2022-2023). During 2017-2020, he studied in the lab of Dr. Julien VERMOT at the Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (IGBMC), Strasbourg, France. He utilizes a biophysical and live-imaging approach in a zebrafish model to elucidate the underlying mechanism of how the heart dynamically organizes its complicated structure.

Yosuke Funato
Kyoto University, Japan

Yosuke Funato is an Associate Professor of Biorecognition Chemistry at Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University. Dr. Funato received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Tokyo. His recent research interest is the mechanisms regulating intracellular magnesium levels and the relationship between their disruption and various diseases/events such as cancer, hypertension, and aging. Typically, he focuses on CNNM, the Mg²⁺ efflux transporter he identified, and its suppressing protein PRL, which is frequently overexpressed in human malignant cancers. Using genetically modified cultured cells, C. elegans, and mice, he demonstrated that PRL-induced aberrant intracellular Mg²⁺ accumulation is critical for malignant cancer progression.

Masaya Hagiwara
RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, Japan

Masaya Hagiwara is a RIKEN Hakubi Team Leader at RIKEN BDR. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Nagoya University in 2011, where he focused on microrobotics based on MEMS and microfluidic technologies. To pursue an academic career in bioengineering, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Chih-Ming Ho at UCLA, where he later became a principal investigator in 2014.
Building on his engineering background, his primary research focus is the design and control of cellular microenvironments to guide the self-organization of organoid architecture. His work aims to recreate and study complex tissue structures, including neural tube, lung, kidney, and skin organoids.

Nozomi Hojo
RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, Japan

Nozomi Hojo received her Ph.D. in Health Sciences from the University of Osaka. In 2016, she joined the Juli J. Unternaehrer’s laboratory at Loma Linda University in California, USA, as a postdoctoral fellow, focusing on basic research towards developing cancer therapies. In 2018, she joined the Katsuyuki Shiroguchi’s Laboratory at RIKEN BDR as a postdoctoral researcher, shifting her field from cancer biology to develop a novel single-cell measurement technology. Her current research interest is cell-cell communication within three-dimensional tissues.

Wataru Ikeda
IDDK Co., Ltd., Japan

Wataru Ikeda is a Director and Chief Scientific Officer of IDDK Co., Ltd. After completing a doctoral course, he became a Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and subsequently became a faculty member of Osaka University. During this period, he mainly conducted research on cell functions and signal transduction, such as cell adhesion, polarity, and movement. After joining the KAN Research Institute, Inc., an Eisai Network Company, he mainly explored drug candidates and elucidated the mechanisms of action of drug candidates. His specialties are biochemistry and cell biology in general, analysis using in vivo and in vitro imaging techniques, and bioinformatics (especially single cell RNA-seq).
His current work is developing products and services using lens-less semiconductor sensor-based microscopic observation devices and focusing on the development of the Micro Bio Space LAB service as a bio-experiment platform in the space environment after the International Space Station.

Yume Imada
Kyoto University, Japan

Yume Imada is an assistant professor at Kyoto University. She received her PhD from Kyoto University in 2017. After spending one year at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, she worked at Ehime University (2018–2023), then moved to the current position. She is broadly interested in the evolutionary history of plant–animal interactions, especially during the early evolution of land plants. She focuses on how such interactions have driven reciprocal coevolution over macroevolutionary timescales, approached from three complementary angles: (1) interactions between animals and plants (mainly bryophytes), (2) the functional morphology of insects (ecomorphology), and (3) fossil evidence of plant–animal interactions (paleoecology).

Yuki Ishikawa
Nagoya University, Japan

Dr. Yuki Ishikawa is a Lecturer at the Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University. She received her Ph.D. in Environmental Science from Hokkaido University in 2011, where she studied the neural and molecular mechanisms underlying social behavior in termites. Her research interests have since evolved toward the neural mechanisms underlying behavioral evolution, focusing on mating preferences, flower visiting behavior, and other adaptive traits in Drosophila species. Her current work integrates neuroscience, physiology, evolutionary biology, and ecology to investigate how sensory processing, neural circuitry, and environmental context shape species-specific courtship and foraging behavior. Through comparative studies of fruit flies, she aims to uncover the evolutionary principles that drive behavioral diversity and ecological adaptation.

Airi Jo-Watanabe
Keio University, Japan

Airi Jo-Watanabe is a principal investigator at the Department of Ion Signaling and Response, Sakaguchi Laboratory, Keio University School of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in medicine from the University of Tokyo in 2014, where she focused on glycation resulting in age-related endothelial dysfunction. She then moved to Juntendo University as a postdoc fellow, where she started her career in the field of G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling. No sooner than a year had passed, did she hit her breakthrough work, a bicarbonate-sensing GPCR (GPBR), through her thorough observation of an apparently failed experiment. She spent ten years establishing her GPBR work and joined Keio University as a principal investigator in 2025.
Currently, her lab explores how GPBR is involved in ischemia-reperfusion injury in vivo and ex vivo. Her focus is also on the development of GPBR agonists/antagonists, utilizing medium-throughput screening and ex vivo functional assays.

Hina Kosakamoto
Champalimaud Foundation, Portugal

Hina Kosakamoto is a postdoctoral researcher at the Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal. She obtained her PhD in 2022 from the University of Tokyo, where she studied nutrient-sensing mechanisms regulating metabolic homeostasis under the supervision of Dr. Masayuki Miura. She then joined the Laboratory for Nutritional Biology at RIKEN BDR as a special postdoctoral researcher, working with Dr. Fumiaki Obata. During this time, she was awarded the RIKEN BAIHO Award for her discovery of novel mechanisms of amino acid sensing. In 2024, she joined Dr. Carlos Ribeiro’s lab at the Champalimaud Foundation, where she began exploring how dietary protein influences animal feeding behavior. Her current research focuses on understanding how neural circuits detect internal nutritional states and how neuronal architecture adapts to these changes. To this end, she combines behavioral analysis with advanced imaging techniques to investigate the structural basis of nutrient-driven brain plasticity.

Yusuke Mii
Institute for Life and Medical Sciences, Kyoto University, Japan

Yusuke Mii is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Life and Medical Sciences, Kyoto University. He received his Ph.D. in developmental biology from the University of Tokyo in 2012 under the supervision of Masanori Taira, where he used Xenopus laevis as a model system. He then joined the laboratory of Shinji Takada at the National Institute for Basic Biology in Okazaki, Japan, as an Assistant Professor. During this period, he investigated the localization of endogenous Wnt proteins as well as and dynamic behavior of Wnt proteins, with a particular focus on their diffusion and distribution in Xenopus embryos. From 2019 to 2022, he served as a PRESTO researcher supported by JST, further expanding his research on the mechanisms by which Wnt regulates planar cell polarity (PCP). In 2024, he joined the Eiraku Laboratory at Kyoto University to establish his own research group. His group focuses on Wnt signaling and the regulation of PCP, aiming to understand how these fundamental factors contribute to tissue architecture, morphogenesis, and homeostasis.
Mii Group HP: https://sites.google.com/view/yusukemii/

Masayuki Oginuma
RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, Japan

Masayuki Oginuma is the Team Leader of the Chrono-Developmental Biology Team at the RIKEN Early Career Leaders Program (ECL). He earned his Ph.D. at the National Institute of Genetics in Japan, where he investigated mouse developmental biology using genetic approaches. He then carried out postdoctoral research at the Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (France) and Harvard Medical School (USA), where he pioneered studies integrating developmental biology with metabolism. Returning to Japan, he was appointed Assistant Professor at Osaka University, where he initiated research on embryonic diapause in the turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri). At RIKEN, his team now focuses on deciphering the molecular basis of developmental timing, combining developmental biology and metabolism to uncover how diapause is regulated.

Satoru Okuda
Nano Life Science Institute, Kanazawa University, Japan

Satoru Okuda is an Associate Professor at the Nano Life Science Institute (NanoLSI), Kanazawa University. He received his Ph.D. in Micro Engineering (2013) from Kyoto University, where he was a JSPS Research Fellow (DC1). He then worked as a Research Scientist and Special Postdoctoral Researcher at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology/Biosystems Dynamics Research (2013–2018), and concurrently as a PRESTO Researcher at JST (2016–2020), before joining Kanazawa University in 2019. His research focuses on the biomechanics of multicellular systems and the physical principles of tissue morphogenesis. By integrating experimental approaches—such as organoid culture, atomic force microscopy, and live imaging—with mathematical modeling, including the development of 3D vertex models, his group aims to quantitatively understand how cells coordinate to self-organize into functional structures. His work has contributed to uncovering mechanical feedback, collective dynamics, and directional organization in epithelial tissues and developing organs.

Misako Okumura
Hiroshima University, Japan

Misako Okumura is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Life at Hiroshima University. She received her Ph.D. from The University of Tokyo in 2015 for research on Drosophila neural circuit formation. From 2015–2017 she was a postdoctoral fellow with Ralf J. Sommer at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, where she began nematode studies on predatory behavior. She joined Hiroshima University in 2017 as an Assistant Professor and has served as Associate Professor since 2021.
Okumura and her group investigate how environmental cues shape behavioral and morphological diversity in nematodes, focusing on how animals without eyes sense and adapt to light. Using genetic approaches, they aim to identify novel photoreceptors and elucidate the pathways that link environmental signals to both behavior and developmental programs.

Daisuke Ono
Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, Nagoya University, Japan

Daisuke Ono is a Lecturer at the Institute of Environmental Medicine, Nagoya University. He received his Ph.D. in medicine from Hokkaido University under the supervision of Prof. Ken-ichi Honma and Sato Honma. Early in his career, he showed that the clock genes Cryptochrome 1 and 2 are dispensable for circadian rhythms in individual cells in mammals. Building on this foundation, his current research focuses on how circadian rhythms are generated in the absence of classical transcription–translation feedback loops and how the central circadian clock, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), regulates physiology and behavior. This research seeks to reveal fundamental mechanisms by which animals anticipate and adapt to predictable environmental cycles through physiological functions such as sleep/wakefulness, reproduction, and metabolic regulation, including hibernation.

Chisako Sakuma
RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, Japan

Chisako Sakuma received her Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 2013. During her graduate and postdoctoral training with Dr. Masayuki Miura and Dr. Takahiro Chihara, she investigated neural development in Drosophila and discovered Strip, an evolutionarily conserved molecule regulating cytoskeletal organization. In 2015, she joined Dr. Hirotaka Kanuka’s laboratory at Jikei University School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor, where she began research on mosquito blood feeding. Her work focused on taste perception, identifying both positive and negative regulators, and she was promoted to Lecturer in 2021. In 2022, she joined Dr. Fumiaki Obata’s laboratory at RIKEN as a Research Scientist, where she continued mosquito research by leading a small subgroup. Alongside dissecting regulatory mechanisms of blood feeding, she initiated studies on how ingested blood is metabolized and utilized physiologically. She was promoted to Senior Scientist in 2024, and since September 2025 has led the newly established ECL Team at RIKEN.

Katsuyoshi Takaoka
Tokushima University, Japan

Katsuyoshi Takaoka is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Advanced Medical Sciences, Tokushima University. He received his PhD in 2009 under Professor Hiroshi Hamada at Osaka University. From 2009, he served as an Assistant Professor at Osaka University, where he studied the mechanisms underlying anterior–posterior axis formation in mouse embryos. In 2016, he moved to Germany as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Director Melina Schuh at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, investigating chromosome segregation in human and mouse oocytes. He joined Tokushima University as an Associate Professor in 2020, where his current research focuses on uncovering the mechanisms and biological significance of embryonic diapause in preimplantation mouse embryos.

Sae Tanaka
Institute of Advanced Biosciences, Keio University, Japan

Sae Tanaka is a Project Assistant Professor at the Institute for Advanced Biosciences, Keio University. She received her Ph.D. in Biological Science from the University of Tokyo in 2015. From 2015 to 2020, she worked as an Assistant Professor at the Keio University School of Medicine, where she studied the near-infrared spectra of glucose solutions. She then joined the Exploratory Research Center on Life and Living Systems at the National Institutes of Natural Sciences to investigate the molecular mechanisms of anhydrobiosis in tardigrades. Since 2024, she has been a FOREST (Fusion Oriented REsearch for disruptive Science and Technology) researcher and has returned to Keio University. Her recent work includes the development of a live-imaging system for tardigrades using a tardigrade-specific in vivo expression vector, TardiVec, which enables the expression of exogenous genes in tardigrades.

Ayaka Yanagida
The University of Tokyo, Japan

Ayaka Yanagida received her PhD in Medicine from the University of Tokyo, where she studied liver development using embryos and stem cells. She subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge, the University of Exeter, and the University of Tokyo, gaining extensive experience in early embryonic development and stem cell biology. Since 2021, she has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Veterinary Anatomy at the University of Tokyo. Her current research focuses on morphogenesis and cell lineage differentiation during early mammalian embryogenesis, particularly at the peri-implantation stage, using both embryos and stem cells.

Eiji Yoshihara
The Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center/Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angles, USA

Dr. Eiji Yoshihara is a Principal Investigator at The Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA. He received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University and conducted his postdoctoral training at the Salk Institute. His research focuses on spatiotemporal gene regulation during development and in adult physiology, with the goal of engineering stem cell-derived cell products to provide innovative solutions for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Dr. Yoshihara has made significant contributions to the fields of stem cell biology, islet transplantation, and immunoengineering. He has received numerous prestigious and competitive research awards in the United States, including the JDRF Career Development Award, CIRM, TRDRP, the Allen Foundation, the Beatson Foundation, and NIH R01 funding. His research integrates developmental biology, mitochondrial physiology, and transcriptional regulation to develop innovative therapeutic strategies for metabolic diseases such as diabetes.