Dr. Osafune graduated from Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University, in 1996. He completed his nephrology residency in Kyoto University Hospital and its affiliated hospitals. In 2000, he started basic research on kidney development and regeneration at Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo (Prof. Makoto Asashima), then he worked on pancreatic regeneration using hESCs/iPSCs as a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Douglas A. Melton at Harvard University. He became Principal Investigator at Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA), Kyoto University, in 2008 and was appointed Professor at CiRA in 2014. He is on the editorial board of Differentiation and StemJournal. He has published original articles in international journals including, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Communications, Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Cell Reports, Cell Chemical Biology and Science Translational Medicine. His major research interests are the development of regenerative therapies against kidney diseases, diabetes and liver diseases.