About UsLeadership

Director

Ryoichiro Kageyama, MD PhD

Dr. Kageyama graduated from Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine and later earned his PhD in Medicine from the same institution. He served as Professor at the Institute for Virus Research (now the Institute for Life and Medical Sciences), Kyoto University and Deputy Director at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS), Kyoto University, before moving to RIKEN to assume the position of Director of the Center for Brain Science. He was appointed to the role of Director of the BDR as well as Team Director of the Laboratory for Neural Stem Cell Research in April 2025. His research focuses on neural development and segmentation in mammals, with a particular emphasis on uncovering the mechanism of the "biological clock that ticks every two hours." By studying the genes that regulate developmental processes, he is working to explore ways to reactivate neural stem cells in the adult brain.

Deputy Directors

-Alphabetical order-

Tomoya Kitajima, PhD

Dr. Kitajima received his PhD from the University of Tokyo for his discovery of shugoshin, an evolutionarily conserved protein that protects centromeric cohesion of sister chromatids. In 2004, he went on to work as a research associate at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at the same university. In 2007, he joined Jan Ellenberg’s group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, as a postdoctoral fellow, where he revealed chromosome dynamics in mammalian oocytes. In 2012, he joined the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology as a team leader of the Laboratory for Chromosome Segregation, to study chromosome segregation in oocytes and how it leads to aging-associated egg aneuploidy. He continues to head the team in BDR. He was appointed as one of the BDR Deputy Directors in April 2019.

Mitsuru Morimoto, PhD

Dr. Morimoto completed his doctoral studies at the Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences. He began his career as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Genetics in 2003. He then moved to Washington University in St. Louis to work in Dr. Raphael Kopan's laboratory, where he started studying development of the respiratory system and discovered that the Notch signaling pathway plays a crucial role in determining the fates of six types of lung cells. After returning to Japan, he served as assistant professor at the National Institute of Genetics. In October 2012, he took up a position as Team Leader at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology, where he has focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms of lung development and regeneration through genetics and organoid culture systems. Since 2018, he continues to serve as Team Leader of Laboratory for Lung Development and Regeneration at the BDR. He was awarded the Kao Science Award in 2019, and was appointed as one of the BDR Deputy Directors in October 2024.

Yasushi Okada, MD PhD

Dr. Okada graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tokyo, where he made significant contributions to the study of motor molecules, particularly kinesin, in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. In 2011, he became Team Leader of the Laboratory for Cell Polarity Regulation at the RIKEN Quantitative Biology Center, and continues to serve as Team Leader when his lab was moved to RIKEN BDR due to reorganization of RIKEN research centers in 2018. He also holds concurrent positions as Professor in the Department of Physics at the Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, and as Professor at the Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo. He was appointed to the post of BDR Deputy Director in October 2024.

Makoto Taiji, DSc

Dr. Taiji obtained his doctorate degree from the Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo. After working as an assistant professor at the Institute of Statistical Mathematics at the same university, he moved to the RIKEN Genomic Sciences Center in 2002, to take a position as a team leader. He developed MDGRAPE-3, a dedicated supercomputer for molecular dynamics simulations, and was twice awarded the Gordon Bell Prize recognizing outstanding achievements in high-performance computing. In April 2011, he was appointed Group Director of the Laboratory for Computational Molecular Design at the RIKEN Quantitative Biology Center (QBiC), and later in 2013, was also named Deputy Director of QBiC. Since 2018, he holds the position of Team Leader of the Laboratory for Computational Molecular Design at the BDR, and in April 2019, he was appointed as one of the BDR Deputy Directors.

Advisory Council (2023)

The RIKEN BDR Advisory Council, an external advisory board, was set up by the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (BDR) to ensure the highest level of transparency in BDR’s research and operations and to provide direction and recommendations from a broad, international perspective. The first Advisory Council meeting was held in August 2019 and welcomed 14 top international scientists from Japan and abroad who provided comprehensive feedback and evaluations on the research being carried out at BDR, as well as its operations, including research planning and progress.

In September 2023, the BDR held its second Advisory Council meeting with 15 distinguished international scientists serving as members of the Council; seven returning members from 2019, and eight new members.