Masatoshi Takeichi

Dr. Masatoshi Takeichi is director of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan as well as director of the Cell Adhesion and Tissue Patterning research group at the same institute. He completed the B. Sc. and M. S. programs in biology at Nagoya University before receiving a doctorate in biophysics from Kyoto University in 1973. After attaining his Ph.D., Dr. Takeichi took a research fellowship at the Carnegie Institute Department of Embryology under Dr. Richard Pagano. He then returned to Kyoto University, attaining a full professorship in the Department of Biophysics (1986-1999), before becoming professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology in the Graduate School of Biostudies at the same university. He assumed his current positions at the CDB in 2000. Dr. Takeichi is best known for his discovery of cadherins, which are fundamental in the mechanisms of cell-cell adhesion. He was the first to recognize that intercellular adhesion involves two distinct mechanisms – calcium-dependent and calcium-independent – and to identify the molecular bases for each. He named the molecule responsible for calcium-dependent adhesion 'cadherin,' and went on to identify a group of related molecules, now known as the cadherin family. These molecules are differentially expressed according to tissue type and developmental stage, and function by allowing cells with compatible cadherins to recognize and bind to each other. His recent work focuses on the role of cadherins in synapse and neural network formation, as well as cadherin-mediated controls of morphogenetic cell behavior.