Teruo Okano

Affiliated Society: Society for Biomaterials (USA)
Country of Residence: Japan
Current Position: Professor

Biography:

Teruo Okano is currently the Emeritus Professor at Tokyo Women’s Medical University (TWMU) in Tokyo, Japan and Adjunct Distinguished Professor at University of Utah, U.S.A.

He developed temperature-responsive polymeric surfaces for harvesting cultured two-dimensional cell layers. Based on this technology, he has proposed a new concept of “Cell Sheet Engineering” which introduces an alternate path for tissue and organ regeneration.

He has been a fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry, a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, a fellow of the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering.

He was the recipient of the Science News Award (1983) and awarded with the 48th and 49th Noteworthy Inventions (1989 and 1990), given by the Science and Technology Agency of Japan.  He also received the Outstanding Paper Award (1990, 1995, and 1996), given by the Controlled Release Society, and the Award of the Japanese Society for Biomaterials in 1992; the Outstanding Pharmaceutical Paper Award (1997) from the Controlled Release Society and the Clemson Award for Basic Research (1997) given by the Society for Biomaterials (U.S.A.).  More recently, he has also received the Award of the Society Polymer Science, Japan (1998), the Founders Award (2000) from the Controlled Release Society, Leona Esaki Prize (2005) and Nagai Innovation Award from Controlled Release Society (2006).  The latest additions are the Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2009) and Emperor’s Medal with Purple Ribbon (National Meritorious Achievement Award) (2009) from His Majesty of the Emperor of Japan and the Yamazaki-Teiichi Prize (2009).

Areas of research interest:

1. Biomaterials for Tissue Engineering and Drug Delivery

2. Intelligent materials for cell sheets

3. Translational research of cell sheet to clinical application

4. 3D tissue and organ construction by layeared cell sheets

Research keywords:

Cardiovascular Biomaterials