Ryoichiro Kageyama

Ryoichiro Kageyama received his M.D. in 1982 from Kyoto University and his Ph.D. in 1986 from the same institution for his work on the structural characterization and transcriptional control of the renin-angiotensin-kinin system. After spending a few years as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute in the United States, he returned to Japan and was appointed Assistant Professor in 1989 and later Associate Professor in 1991 in the Faculty of Medicine of Kyoto University. There, he began looking at bHLH genes, such as Hes1 and Math1, and analyzed their roles in neural development. He then moved to Kyoto University’s Institute for Virus Research to assume a full professorship in 1997, continuing his study on the roles bHLH genes in neural development, including retinogenesis. He also worked on the transcriptional code for neuronal subtype specification. In April 2006, he was appointed Director of the same institute.

His current research involves studies on the dynamics of gene expression during cellular proliferation and differentiation. His group has recently developed a real-time imaging system for Hes expression and is working to characterize the dynamic expression of Hes genes and their significance in neural development. They are also interested in roles of bHLH genes in adult neurogenesis and characterizing their roles in brain functions.