Speakers

Shigeo Hayashi received his B. Sc. in Biology from Kyoto University in 1982, and his Ph.D. in Biophysics from the same institution in 1987, for his work on lens-specific regulation of the chicken delta crystallin gene. Inspired by the discovery of the homeobox, he changed his research focus to the developmental genetics of Drosophila and spent three years as a postdoctoral research associate in Matthew Scott's lab at the University of Colorado before returning to Japan to work in the National Institute of Genetics. He became an associate professor at the same Institute in 1994, and professor in 1999. Also in 1999, he received the incentive prize of the Genetics Society of Japan for Genetic Studies on Drosophila Development. He was named group director of the Morphogenetic Signaling research group at the RIKEN CDB in May 2000, later as a team leader of the same laboratory. His current research interests are dynamic aspects of cell adhesion, cell migration and cell morphogenesis in Drosophila.