Toshimitsu Hamasaki is a Professor at the George Washington University (GWU) Biostatistics Center and the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. Prior to joining GWU, he worked at Shiogoni, Pfizer, Osaka University and the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center. His research interests include the design, monitoring, analyses, and reporting of clinical trials. He was a co-chair of the Society for Clinical Trials (SCT) Program Committee and the chair of the ASA Committee on International Relations in Statistics. He was a member of the Steering Committee for the Adaptive Designs CONSORT Extension (ACE) Project, an extension to the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Statement for adaptive clinical trials, and a member of the ICH-E5 Guideline Implementation Working Group as a representative of Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) and a fellow of the ASA. He received the Distinguished Article Award from the Japanese Society of Computational Statistics and the Hida-Mizuno Prize from the Behaviormetric Society of Japan.
Kei Murayama is a professor in the Department of Pediatrics, and the Intractable Disease Research Center, Graduate School of Medicine, Juntendo University. He received a medical degree in 1996 from Akita University. He has trained as a pediatrician at Chiba University Hospital, Chiba Kaihin Hospital. Moreover, he received a Ph.D. degree in 2005 from the Chiba University School of Medicine, Japan. His work explores the pathogenesis of inborn errors of metabolism, especially in mitochondria-related diseases. Since 2002, he has worked as a chief doctor in the Department of Metabolism, Chiba Children’s Hospital, Japan, and since 2014, he has worked as a director in the same department. He studied mitochondrial disease at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in 2006 and at the Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum Munich, Germany in 2014. He received two research grants from the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) concerning mitochondrial disease (MD), and his group has established registry systems, clinical guidelines, and diagnosis systems for MD in Japan. He is also leading an international collaboration examining the molecular basis and novel treatment for rare intractable diseases, especially MD.
Yasushi Okazaki is currently the Director and Professor of Diagnostics and Therapeutics of Intractable Diseases, Graduate School of Medicine & Intractable Disease Research Center, Juntendo University. He holds an M.D. (1986) from Okayama University Medical School and a Ph.D. (1995) from Osaka University Medical School (Medical Informatics). His main research topics and interests focus on Dx and Tx of mitochondrial diseases, genetics of hereditary cancer, direct reprogramming of β cells, regenerative therapy, and Tx of cardiovascular diseases.
Akira Ohtake received his M.D. from Chiba University School of Medicine in 1979. After receiving a Ph.D. from Chiba University School of Medicine in 1988, he obtained a position as a Lecturer in the Department of Pediatrics, Chiba University School of Medicine from 1988 to 1992. Then, he moved to the Department of Clinical Genetics, The Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science from 1992 to 1994 as a Principal Investigator, mainly studying Fatty Acid Oxidation Defects. Then, he moved to the Department of Pediatrics, Saitama Medical University in 1994. On leave from Saitama Medical University, he joined the Department of Biochemistry, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia from 2002 to 2003, where he learned about mitochondrial diseases under Dr. Mike T Ryan and Dr. David R Thorburn. After coming back to Japan, he started researching the molecular basis of mitochondrial respiratory chain disorders with Prof. Yasushi Okazaki and Prof. Kei Murayama. He became a professor at the Department of Pediatrics, Saitama Medical University in 2007 and doubled as a vice-president of the Centre for Intractable Diseases in 2015 and as a professor of the Department of Clinical Genomics in 2019. Since 2024, he has been working as a Visiting & Honorary Professor at the Department of Clinical Genomics & Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Saitama Medical University.
