Professor Nobuo Sasaki of the Institute for Molecular and Cellular Regulation is one of the world's leading researchers on organoids. Organoids are a technology for culturing animal and human organs and cells in vitro. The advantages of organoids are the ability to culture normal human cells, which was impossible with conventional culture methods, and the ability to handle human organs. Professor Sasaki was involved in research on human cancer cell organoids for five years from 2011 under Dr. Hans Clevers in the Netherlands, who was the first in the world to succeed in the organoid culture method. After that, he worked at Keio University School of Medicine before establishing his laboratory at Gunma University in the spring of 2021.

    He has published a series of papers in top journals, and last year he was selected as an "H papers author (a researcher who has published several papers in the top 1% of the number of times his/her paper has been cited)".

    The master of organoids, who has attracted the attention of molecular biologists worldwide, is now taking on the challenge of elucidating the actual state of intestinal bacteria-host interactions. He aims to establish "intestinal design," a science that uses the power of intestinal bacteria to freely increase or decrease the number of target cells, to elucidate the mechanisms of disease onset, and to develop new treatment methods.