Dr. Keita Kirito
Keita Kirito, MD, PhD graduated from Jichi Medical University in 1988 and received his Ph.D. in 1998. He had been studying the role of the signal transduction molecules, especially JAK/STAT pathways on normal and pathological hematopoiesis. He was a junior faculty member of Dr.Kenneth Kaushansky lab from 2001 to 2004 and discovered the important function of thrombopoietin on hematopoietic stem cells; activating homeobox proteins and hypoxia response factors. Since 2010, he has been the Professor of Department of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Yamanashi. His major focuses on the function of bone marrow microenvironment, i.e. oxygen levels and glucose supply, on pathophysiology of myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN). He attended a number of clinical trials for MPN as investigator, including RESPONSE study, RETHINK study and AJP-01 study. He is also a core member of multi-center prospective observational study of the Japanese MPN patients (JSH-MPN-15).