Osaka University / Photon Factory, KEK
Info
Professor and Director of the Structural Biology Research Center (SBRC) at the Photon Factory, Institute of Materials Structure Science, High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) in Tsukuba, Japan. Joined KEK in January 2013 and became director of SBRC. SBRC has approximately 40 members split between beamline operation/development and structural biology research (including cryo-EM), and operates five MX beamlines at the Photon Factory: BL-1A, BL-5A, BL-17A, AR-NW12A, and AR-NE3A. SBRC pioneered a long-wavelength MX beamline (BL-1A) for native single-wavelength anomalous diffraction (native-SAD) phasing.
wwPDB role
Advisory Committee member, PDBj representative. Brings expertise in beamline automation, native-SAD phasing, and Japanese synchrotron infrastructure to wwPDB governance.
Affiliations
- Photon Factory, KEK (High Energy Accelerator Research Organization) — Professor and Director, Structural Biology Research Center (SBRC) (2013-)
Committees & service
- wwPDB Advisory Committee — PDBj representative
Key Relationships
- KEK and Osaka University (IPR / PDBj led by Genji Kurisu) are the twin pillars of Japanese structural biology infrastructure
- SBRC members have played key roles in the Platform for Drug discovery, Informatics, and Structural life science (PDIS) project in Japan
Sources
- Advances in macromolecular crystallography at the Photon Factory (J. Synchrotron Radiation 2025): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12067343/
- wwPDB 2025 Advisory Committee report: https://cdn.rcsb.org/wwpdb/docs/about/advisory/wwpdbac2025-report.pdf