Dr. Kazunori Kataoka is a Director General of Innovation Center of NanoMedicine (iCONM), Kawasaki Institute of Industry Promotion. He is also a Professor at Policy Alternatives Research Institute, The University of Tokyo.
He received his B.Eng. (1974) in Organic Chemistry, M.Eng. (1976) and Ph.D. (1979) in Polymer Chemistry from The University of Tokyo. He started his academic career at Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Tokyo Women’s Medical College as Assistant Professor (1979) and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1988. He moved to Department of Materials Engineering, Tokyo University of Science in 1989 as Associate Professor and was promoted to full Professor in 1994. He joined Department of Materials Engineering, The University of Tokyo in 1998 as full Professor. He was appointed joint-position of full Professor at Center for Disease Biology and Integrative Medicine, The University of Toyo Medical School in 2004. In 2016, he took mandatory retirement from Graduate School of Engineering/Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, and moved to the current position. He has been appointed as Adjunct Professor at Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill since 2015.
He has received several scientific awards, including the Clemson Award from the Society for Biomaterials, USA (2005), the Founder’s Award from the Controlled Release Society (2008), Humboldt Research Award from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2012), and Leo Esaki Prize (2012). He has more than 500 publications, and is on the editorial board of 15 international journals. His current major research interests include supramolecular materials for nanobiotechnology, focusing on drug and gene delivery systems.