Dr. Tanaka is a pancreatic and laparoscopic surgeon, Professor of Surgery, and Chairman of the Department of Surgery and Oncology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University. He received his M.D. from Kyushu University in 1974, and completed surgical training at Kyushu University Hospital and several affiliated hospitals. He received his Ph.D. degree from Kyushu University for research in endoscopic pressure measurement of pancreatic and bile ducts. He was promoted to a faculty position at Kyushu University in 1981. In 1985, he started a 2 year fellowship at the Gastrointestinal Unit, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, as the first research fellow to work with Dr. Michael G. Sarr. During that time he learned much about GI motility from his mentor, Dr. Sarr. In 1987, he joined the Surgical Center at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, as a research fellow supported by the Humboldt Foundation, where he worked with Dr. Norbert Senninger. Dr. Tanaka received a German Ph.D. degree (Doctor medicinae) from the University of Heidelberg in 1988. After returning to Kyushu University as an assistant professor in 1989, he was appointed to his current position in 1992. Dr. Tanaka is the President of the Asian-Oceanic Pancreatic Association, through 2014. He also served as the President of the Japan Pancreas Society (JPS) from July 2005 to July 2012, and greatly contributed not only to the further development of the JPS but to the consolidation of the organization of the International Association of Pancreatology (IAP). He served as the first congress president of the Asian-Pacific Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association in 2003 and chaired the scientific committee of that association from 2009 through 2013. During his JPS presidency, he successfully co-hosted the 40th Anniversary Joint Meeting of the APA and the JPS with Dr. Andrew Warshaw in Honolulu in 2009, and hosted the 14th IAP meeting in Fukuoka in 2010. He is now the president emeritus of the JPS, an auditor of seven academic societies including the Japan Surgical Society, and the first member from Japan of the International Surgical Group which admits only 60 active members in the world. He is an associate editor of Pancreas, Pancreatology and Digestion, the chief editor of a Japanese journal "Biliary tract and pancreas", and an editor of four other academic journals. Among his many academic achievements, his contribution to the compilation of the International Consensus Guidelines for the Management of IPMN and MCN of the Pancreas is particularly noteworthy.