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  • Scientific Advisor

Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD

Senior Scientific Advisor

Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD
"I am delighted to be part of Altos and believe it to be one of the most important and exciting new global scientific endeavors. The possibility of rejuvenation programming has only recently become a scientific reality and has the potential to enable us to approach human disease in an entirely new way. I am glad that I will help scientists in Japan to work in this exciting field."

Dr. Shinya Yamanaka serves as Senior Scientific Advisor to Altos Labs without remuneration, overseeing research activities in Japan.

Dr. Yamanaka is a Senior Investigator and the L.K. Whittier Foundation Investigator in Stem Cell Biology at the Gladstone Institute for Cardiovascular Disease. He is also a Professor of Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco, as well as a Director and Professor of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at Kyoto University. Dr. Yamanaka earned an MD from Kobe University and a PhD from Osaka City University. He became an Assistant Professor at Osaka City University Medical School, and later an Associate Professor at Nara Institute of Science and Technology, where he eventually became a full Professor in 2003. Dr. Yamanaka attained professor position at Kyoto University in 2004, and was appointed Senior Investigator at Gladstone Institutes in 2007. Since 2008, he has been directing CiRA.

In 2012, Dr. Yamanaka was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery that adult somatic cells can be reprogrammed into pluripotent cells. In addition, he has received many awards and honors, including the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, the Wolf Prize in Medicine, the Millennium Technology Award, the Shaw Prize, the Kyoto Prize for Advanced Technology, the Gairdner International Award, and the Robert Koch Award.