Keisuke Kaji Research Group

Biology of reprogramming

The Kaji group aims to understand the mechanisms of reprogramming induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to improve the technology as well as to apply the knowledge to generate different cell types.

Professor Keisuke Kaji

Group Leader

Contact details

Fibroblasts becoming induced pluripotent stem cells

Aims and areas of interest

Recently a technology to generate pluripotent stem cells from differentiated somatic cells has been developed using defined transcription factors. Similarly, different cellular identity conversions from one type to the other have also been achieved by exogenous expression of master transcription factors. However, the biological mechanism underlying the process of reprogramming has not been elucidated well, and the resulting cell types are often not fully functional. Our group aims to understand the mechanism of the reprogramming, improve the technology and generate fully functional cell types for medicine.