After spending two years with Prof. Samuel. J. Danishefsky at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research (1998-2000), he joined the Graduate School of Science at Tohoku University as an assistant professor in the research group of Prof. Masahiro Hirama. He was promoted to associate professor in 2004. In 2007, he moved to The University of Tokyo as a full professor. He has been honored with the First Merck-Banyu Lectureship Award (2004), Novartis Chemistry Lectureship 2008/2009, 5th JSPS Prize (2008), the Mukaiyama Award (2014), Swiss Chemical Society Lectureship Award (2017), JOC Lectureship Award (2018), and The Yomiuri Techno Forum Gold Medal Prize (2018). His research interests include the synthesis, design and study of biologically important molecules, with particular emphasis on the total synthesis of structurally complex natural products.