Hiromitsu Nakauchi

Hiro Nakauchi, M.D., Ph.D., professor of genetics joined the faculty at Stanford University in February 2014.  After earning medical degree from Yokohama City University School of Medicine and a Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine, he came to Stanford as a postdoctoral scholar in the laboratory of the late Prof. Leonard Herzenberg.  While at Stanford, he isolated CD8 genes that encode critically important molecules for immune cells to recognize virus infected or cancer cells. After returning to Japan, he started working on hematopoietic stem cells in his laboratory at RIKEN Life Science Research Center. In 1994, he became 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 2008, he was appointed Director of newly established Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at IMSUT.  He returned to Stanford University as a faculty to continue his stem cell research at the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.