Team 2025
Adjunct Professor/Executive Researcher
Dr. Ryozo Imai majored Chemistry and Chemical engineering in his undergraduate study at Waseda University. He received M.S in Life Chemistry from Tokyo Instutute of Technology and Ph.D. in Agricultural Chemistry from University of Tokyo. His graduate study is on microbial degradation of xenobiotics.
He started to work on plant biology when he did postdoc at University of California, Riverside, where he studied on drought tolerance of tomato. He worked on plant cold tolerance at NARO-HARC (1997-2016). He also served as an adjunct professor at graduate school of Agriculture, Hokkaido University (2008-2016). He is currently adjunct professor of Tokyo University of Science.
Group Leader
Dr. Sasaki gradated from Tsukuba University and received PhD from Hokkaido University. His major is molecular biology and crop biotechnology. He is currently developing iPB technology for a variety of crop and horticultural plants.
Senior Researcher
Dr. Urano graduated from Japan Women's University with her major in biology. As a graduate student she studied at Shinozaki Lab in RIKEN and received her PhD from University of Tsukuba. She was a researcher at RIKEN before she joined the lab in 2021.
Researcher
Dr. Takemoto graduated from the University of Tokyo and received his PhD in Biology from the school in 2018. His PhD research is on membrane traficking in Arabidopsis. He did his Ph D research on plant hormone with Dr. Shinjiro Yamguchi at Kyoto University before he joined Imai Lab. Dr. Takemoto is currently a Staff Researcher.
Postdoc Researcher
Dr. Veciana Fonts graduated from Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain, majoring Biochemistry. He received a Ph.D in Plant Biotechnology from Autonomous University of Barcelona. His PhD study was on light signaling that regulates plant growth and development. He joined Imai Lab as a postdoctrla fellow. His research is focussed on improving soybean seed quality via genome editing.
Postdoc Researcher
Dr. Fujii received his bachelor's and Ph.D. degree from Kyoto University majoring crop science. He did postdoc researches on soybean breeding at NARO Institute of Crop Science and on quinoa breeding at JIRCAS. He is currently developing an iPB-based genome editing system in soybean.
Postdoc Researcher
Dr. Nagata graduated from Kyushu University majoring Agronomy. He received his Ph.D. in Entomology from Kyushu University. He has a long career in the research on plant molecular biology at NARO and other insititutes.
Postdoc Researcher
Dr. Ramadan graduated from Ain-Shams Univiersity, Cairo. He received his Ph.D. from Ehime University where he studyed protein chemistry and molecular biology. He experienced several postdoctral positions in Tokyo Univiersity of Science and University of Tsukuba before joining Imai Lab at NARO.
Visiting Researcher
Dr. Suzuki joined the lab in 2020. He received his Batchelor's and Doctor's degrees from Tokyo University of Science. After doing postdoc in Imai Lab, he now works for Ezaki Glico Co.
Visiting Researcher
Rei is a visiting scholar from Ezaki Glico Co. She graduated from Tamagawa Univ., majoring Agricultural Science.
Undergradutate Student
Riku joined the lab as an undergraduate student of Tokyo University of Science.