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Makoto Furutani-Seiki is a Professor of Systems Biochemistry at Yamaguchi University School of Medicine, Japan, and a visiting Associate Professor at the University of Bath, UK. Dr. Furutani-Seiki is an M.D. and obtained his Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Tokyo, supervised by Tomio Tada (1989). He was a postdoc in Janni Nüsslein-Volhard’s lab at Max-Planck-Institute in Tübingen (1992-1997), after which he conducted a genome-wide mutagenesis screen using medaka fish as a group leader of the Kondoh Differentiation Signaling ERATO project (Japan Science and Technology Agency, 1998-2007). He then moved to University of Bath, UK, Centre for Regenerative Medicine as a MRC Senior Research Fellow, and continues his research at Yamaguchi University School of Medicine, Japan.
Dr. Furutani-Seiki investigates the molecular mechanisms of mechano-homeostasis in which extracellular mechanical cues are integrated with cell differentiation and proliferation to maintain tissue, organ and body form. He discovered a single gene whose product is essential for the body and organs to keep their 3D shape and withstand external forces such as gravity. This gene was discovered through the analysis of a medaka fish mutant with a unique flattened phenotype which was identified by the combination of the mutagenesis screen in zebrafish with another screen in medaka fish. He is probably the only researcher who has used this combined approach which allows identification of many new phenotypes by virtue of independent evolution of duplicated genes between the two fish species. His current research is aimed at elucidating the mechanisms affecting mechano-homeostasis in human diseases, employing multi-disciplinary approaches, e.g. biophysics, systems biology and genetics, in close collaboration with clinical researchers.
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