Professor Keiichi Fukuda

Professor Keiichi Fukuda

Keio University, Tokyo (Japan)

Keiichi Fukuda is pioneer of the cardiac regeneration field and has been at its cutting edge for the past 20 years. He has made several contributions to both the fundamental biology of the stem cells and how to regenerate cardiomyocytes and to transplant them into the in vivo heart. He first reported that bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells can be induced to differentiate into cardiomyocytes in vitro. He first developed a method to generate iPS cells from peripheral circulating T lymphocytes using Sendai virus containing Yamanaka factors. He found several factors such as noggin, Wnt and G-CSF, and applied them to induce cardiomyocytes. He also developed novel method to purify the cardiomyocytes by the difference of metabolic energy pathway. He became Chief Professor of the Department of Cardiology in Keio University, and published more than 600 top-ranked papers including Nature- and Cell-sister journals.