Rate My Professor Kenji Kamimoto

Kenji Kamimoto is a professor in the Division of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Department of Systems Biomedical Science at the Research Institute for Microbial Diseases (RIMD), The University of Osaka. He graduated from the Department of Biophysics and Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, The University of Tokyo in 2012 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 2017. In 2017, he was appointed as a project-associated assistant professor at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, The University of Tokyo. He then moved to Washington University in St. Louis as a postdoctoral researcher and was promoted to senior scientist in 2022. He was appointed associate professor at RIMD in 2024 and assumed his current position in 2025. He also holds a professor position in the Research Promotion Chair, Single Cell Dynamics Modeling Group at the Premium Research Institute for Human Metaverse Medicine (PRIMe).

Kamimoto’s research focuses on systems biomedical science, integrating single-cell omics data, bioinformatics, and computational modeling to study gene regulatory networks, cell identity, developmental processes, and disease mechanisms. His laboratory develops tools such as CellOracle for in silico gene perturbation and predictive simulations. Key publications include “Dissecting cell identity via network inference and in silico gene perturbation” (Nature, 2023), “Gene regulatory network reconfiguration in direct lineage reprogramming” (Stem Cell Reports, 2023), and contributions to studies on single-cell lineage tracing and cardiac recovery published in Cell Stem Cell and Nature Cardiovascular Research. He has received the Young Scientists’ Award. Kamimoto maintains concurrent appointments at the Bioinformatics Center and other Osaka University units.