Takaaki Mitsuhashi received his B.S. (2014), M.S. (2016),
and Ph.D. (2019) degrees from the University of Tokyo,
Japan, under the guidance of Prof. Ikuro Abe. His research
focuses mainly on the biosynthesis of fungal
sesterterpenoids. Currently, he is working on the enzymes
involved in the formation of basic carbon skeletons of the
sesterterpenoids.
Ikuro Abe is Professor at the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo (2009–). He
received his B.S. (1984) and Ph.D. (1989) from The University of Tokyo. After 2 years postdoctoral research with
Professor Guy Ourisson at the CNRS Institut de Chimie
des Substances Naturelles, and Professor Michel Rohmer at
the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Mulhouse in
France (1989–1991), he moved to the United States to work
with Professor Glenn D. Prestwich at the State University of
New York at Stony Brook (1991–1996) and then at the
University of Utah (1996–1998). His research interests
focus mostly on exploring and engineering the natural products biosynthesis pathways. He has co-authored more than
250 publications, including those in “Nature,” “Nature
Chemistry,” “Nature Chemical Biology,” “Nature Communications,” “Journal of the American Chemical Society,”
“Angewandte Chemie International Edition,” and “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.” He
was an Editorial Board Member of “Natural Products
Reports” (2012–2017) and currently serves in this capacity
for the “Journal of Biological Chemistry” (2019–2024). He
received the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan Award in
2019, and prizes for Science and Technology from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology,
Japan. He is a former President of The Japanese Society of
Pharmacognosy.
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