Shinichi Aizawa received his Ph.D. in developmental biochemistry from the Tokyo Kyoiku University Department of Zoology in 1973. He spent the period from 1974 to 1979 as an investigator at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, then two years as a research fellow at the University of Washington. He returned to the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology in 1982, where he remained until 1986, when he moved to the RIKEN Tsukuba Life Science Center. He was appointed professor in the Kumamoto University School of Medicine in 1994, and served in that position until 2002. Since 2000 he has served as CDB deputy director and group director of the Vertebrate Body Plan lab, as well as head of the Animal Resources and Genetic Engineering Laboratory. He also serves as a managing editor for the journal, Mechanisms of Development and president of Japanese Society of Developmental Biologists. Main research topic of his group is head development in vertebrates.