I studied medicine in Kyoto University, and took three years of residency in neurosurgery. I was given PhD from Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, and also passed the examination for Japanese Board of Neurological Surgeon in 1993. I started research on neural stem cells in Fred H. Gage's laboratory at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, where I worked as a postdoctoral fellow for two years. Since I came back to Kyoto in 1997, I have been working as a clinical neurosurgeon but continuing research work as well. Now I am a lecturer of the department of neurosurgery, performing mainly functional neurosurgery including deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease patients, and also developing a method of cell transplantation using ES cells for the treatment of Parkinson's disease.