Hiromitsu Nakauchi

The focal point of Hiro’s work is the translation of discoveries in basic research into practical medical applications. After earning an M.D. and a Ph.D. in immunology, Dr. Nakauchi came 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”. In 2002, he became a Professor of Stem Cell Therapy in the Institute of Medical Science at The University of Tokyo (IMSUT). In 2008, he was appointed Director of the newly established Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at 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.