Masatoshi Takeichi
RIKEN
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Primary Section: 22, Cellular and Developmental Biology Secondary Section: 24, Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience Membership Type:
International Member
(elected 2007)
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Biosketch
Dr. Masatoshi Takeichi is an Honorary Scientist in RIKEN, and Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University. He completed the B. Sc. and M. S. programs in biology at Nagoya University before receiving a doctorate in biophysics from Kyoto University in 1973. After attaining his Ph.D., Dr. Takeichi took a research fellowship at the Carnegie Institute Department of Embryology under Dr. Richard Pagano. He then returned to Kyoto University, attaining a full professorship in the Department of Biophysics (1986-1999), before becoming professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology in the Graduate School of Biostudies at the same university. He assumed director at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in 2000, until resigning this position in 2014. Dr. Takeichi is best known for his discovery of cadherins, which are fundamental in the mechanisms of animal cell-cell adhesion. He has received many honors or awards, such as Japan Prize (2005), Thomson Reuters Citation Laureate (2012), and Canada Gairdner International Award. He is a member of the Japan Academy, and an associate member of EMBO.
Research Interests
My recent work focuses on the role of cadherins and cytoskeletal proteins in cell and tissue morphogenesis, as well as in pathological cancer cell behavior. We are also studying how microtubules are regulated at their minus ends by CAMSAP proteins, and this process controls cell shaping.
