Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials

Highlighted Editor: Satoshi Nishida

My research started to focus on the molecular mechanism of bacterial DNA replication in my Ph.D. study at Kyushu University (1999). As a postdoc (1999-2002), I focused on host-microbe interaction in humans, especially Aspergillus fumigatus, at National Center for Child Health and Development, Tokyo, Japan. Next, I worked at the University of Tokyo on a target discovery for novel antimicrobial drug development in collaboration with Shionogi, Co (2002-2005). Peptidoglycan is a structure specific to bacteria, and a drug that explicitly inhibits its biosynthetic pathway has few side effects. I performed an analysis on peptidoglycan synthases essential for growth as a research associate at Musashino University (2005-2007). I was trained in analyzing drug resistance and virulence gene expression and antibiotic response at the University of Chicago and Harvard University as a research associate and associate, respectively (2007-2012). Next, I joined as a chief scientist in Genome Pharmaceuticals Institute Co., a biotech venture at the University of Tokyo, and used an insect infection model and developed new probiotics (2013-2015).

In 2015, I moved to Teikyo University School of Medicine, and my research has shifted to analyzing multidrug-resistant bacteria because of its critical emergence in community and clinical settings. Collaborating with clinical colleagues, we have identified multidrug-resistant nosocomial pathogens from patients. In addition, we evaluated the use of probiotics as a non-antibiotic experimental therapy in an insect infection model. Now, we are integrating whole-genome sequencing and an experimental infection model to explore infection and colonization of multidrug-resistant nosocomial pathogens in human health and disease with curative intent.