Masahiro Ono, MD PhD

Principal Investigator

Reader in Immunology, Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London

Dr Masahiro Ono is an immunologist and expert in T-cell regulation. He investigates mechanisms of T cell activation and regulation in autoimmunity, infections, and cancer using immunological and molecular methods, flow cytometric analysis, high-throughout immunological genomics, and single cell methods. He is the pioneer of the Timer-of-Cell-Kinetics-and-Activity (Tocky), which analyses temporal changes of T-cell activities in vivo using Fluorescent Timer protein.

Dr Ono did his undergraduate in Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University (1993-1999, MD) and later was trained in dermatology. He did his PhD in 2002 - 2006 in the study of regulatory T cells (Tregs) in Graduate School of Kyoto University, and continued his immunology research as a post-doc and later an assistant professor in Kyoto University/ Osaka University. In 2009, he obtained a HFSP Fellowship, and joined University College London (UCL), when he extended his research to immunological genomics. In 2012, he was awarded a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship, and established his lab in UCL. He joined Imperial College London in 2015 and was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in 2018. He was promoted to a Reader in Immunology in 2020.