Draft:Hiroshi Ohno

Hiroshi Ohno (大野　博司) is an Japanese immunologist and microbiologist. He is Deputy Director of the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences and Team Leader of the Laboratory for Intestinal Ecosystem；a visiting professor at the Immunobiology Laboratory at Yokohama City University Graduate SchoolEdical Life Science; and a visiting professor at Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine.

He is a leading figure who has focused on the impact of gut microbiota on host health and pathological conditions, and in particular has advanced research on M cells, which are antigen-uptake cells that exist in the specially differentiated epithelial layer that covers mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue. He continues to publish world-leading research results on the molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of host-gut microbiota interactions on host physiology and pathology.

Early life and education
Ohno was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1958. When he was a child he'd been moving a lot because of his father's job. He went to Kyushu for kindergarten, Mito City for 4th grade, Tokyo for 5th grade, Tochigi Prefecture for the summer of his 3rd year of junior high school, and Tottori Prefecture for his 3rd year of high school. At the end of his second year of high school, he took the exam and transferred to Yonago Higashi High School. During his junior high school he became interested in biology. At a science class, he dissected crucian carp and frog, but realized that humans were the best choice for research, so in his first year of high school he started thinking about going to medical school. He received his M.D. degree at Chiba University in 1983 and his Ph.D. degree at Chiba University, Graduate School of Medicine in 1991.

Professional career
Between 1983 and 1987, Ohno worked as an anesthesiologist. The first year was at Chiba University, the second year was at Tokyo Employees' Pension Hospital (currently JCHO Tokyo Shinjuku Medical Center), the third year was at National Health Insurance Matsudo City Hospital (currently Matsudo City General Medical Center), and the fourth year was at Chiba Cancer Center. During the period with anesthesiology, he conducted research on epidural anesthesia, which resulted in his first English paper pulished in the Anesthesiology (journal). After woking as an anesthesiologist, he wanted to specialize in the basic science rather than clinical field, he entered Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University. However, at that time he had no intention of quitting anesthesiology, and he joined Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kyoto University, to study basic research related to nocicption and antinociception. After a year in Kyoto, he decided to go back to Chiba University to study molecular biology. At that time, molecular biology was in its infancy, and only a limited number of people took advantage of it in their research; at the Chiba University, Professor Masaru Taniguchi, a professor of immunology, was actively incorporating molecular biology. After returning to Chiba University in 1988, he started studying T cell receptors, and also worked on cloning genes related to T cell receptors. At that time, knockout mouse technology had just been put into practical use, and it was hardly done in Japan. Therefore, after finishing his PhD course, he has stayed 6 months in Professor Klaus Rajewsky's laboratory in the Institute of Genetics at the University of Cologne in Germany to learn knockout mouse technology. During his study on T cells he gut interested in cell biology, especially intracellular traffic of T cell receptors, and he decided to go abroad to join the Juan Bonifacino Lab at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States, to study membrane traffic from1993 to 1997. Through research at the NIH, he was able to identify molecules involved in endocytosis, and published a paper in Science (journal).

In 1999, he became a professor at Kanazawa University and began research on M cells, which are closely related to endocytosis and transcytosis.

From 2002 he became a team leader of the Laboratoy for Epithelial Immunobiology in RIKEN Research Center for Allergy and Immunology. There he decided to make gut microbiota one of his main research themes. Ohno is currently a Deputy Director of the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences and Team Leader of the Laboratory for Intestinal Ecosystem. He is also a visiting professor at the Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medical Life Science, and the Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine.

Awards

 * 2015 - Ando Momofuku Prize
 * 2016 - Beltz award (2nd)
 * 2018 - Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Commendation for Science and Technology Award
 * 2018 - Hideo Noguchi Memorial Medical Prize
 * 2021 - Mochida Memorial Academic Award]
 * 2022 - Takamine Memorial Daiichi Sankyo Award
 * 2022 - Uehara Prize
 * 2023 - Medals of Honor (Japan) (with purple ribbon)

Notable publications