Kazuhiko Kume


	Kazuhiko Kume is a professor of neuropharmacology at Nagoya City University, Graduate School of harmaceutical Sciences. He is both a basic scientist working on the molecular mechanism underlying sleep and circadian rhythm and a clinical physician specialized in sleep medicine. He, thus, teaches and investigates in a university and also sees patients in a hospital. He graduated the University of Tokyo, School of Medicine in 1987, finished a residency program and then started to work in molecular biology and biochemistry. After working several years in that field, he went to the United States in 1999 where he worked with Dr. Steven Reppert when he was in MGH of Harvard University, Medical School. He cloned and characterized one the most important clock genes, cryptochrome there. Then he moved to Tufts University, School of Medicine, where he worked with Dr. Rob Jackson on sleep of fruit fly, Drosophila, which he has continued until now. He came back to Japan in 2002, and worked as an associate professor at Kumamoto University then moved to the present position in Nagoya in 2013. He has so far elucidated that dopamine, which is one of the arousal neurotransmitter in human brain, also works in fly brain to wake them up. This study indicated that sleep is a conserved biological function between mammalian and insects at the molecular mechanism level. He also works in human science through a collaboration with a Japanese health-care instrument company, Omron, and developed a contactless sleep monitor with Radar-motion-sensor. This product yielded a large scale sleep data from Japanese people. In addition to being a basic scientist and a medical doctor, he regards himself as a ‘weekend’ philosopher. He has studied ‘bioethics’ since medical school and recently is interested in ‘neuroethics’ and ‘the philosophy of mind’. He translated an English textbook on ‘neuroethics’ into Japanese with a professor in philosophy in 2006. He is a secretary general of Japanese Society for Chronobiology.

Kazuhiko Kume is a professor of neuropharmacology at Nagoya City University, Graduate School of harmaceutical Sciences. He is both a basic scientist working on the molecular mechanism underlying sleep and circadian rhythm and a clinical physician specialized in sleep medicine. He, thus, teaches and investigates in a university and also sees patients in a hospital. He graduated the University of Tokyo, School of Medicine in 1987, finished a residency program and then started to work in molecular biology and biochemistry. After working several years in that field, he went to the United States in 1999 where he worked with Dr. Steven Reppert when he was in MGH of Harvard University, Medical School. He cloned and characterized one the most important clock genes, cryptochrome there. Then he moved to Tufts University, School of Medicine, where he worked with Dr. Rob Jackson on sleep of fruit fly, Drosophila, which he has continued until now. He came back to Japan in 2002, and worked as an associate professor at Kumamoto University then moved to the present position in Nagoya in 2013. He has so far elucidated that dopamine, which is one of the arousal neurotransmitter in human brain, also works in fly brain to wake them up. This study indicated that sleep is a conserved biological function between mammalian and insects at the molecular mechanism level. He also works in human science through a collaboration with a Japanese health-care instrument company, Omron, and developed a contactless sleep monitor with Radar-motion-sensor. This product yielded a large scale sleep data from Japanese people. In addition to being a basic scientist and a medical doctor, he regards himself as a ‘weekend’ philosopher. He has studied ‘bioethics’ since medical school and recently is interested in ‘neuroethics’ and ‘the philosophy of mind’. He translated an English textbook on ‘neuroethics’ into Japanese with a professor in philosophy in 2006. He is a secretary general of Japanese Society for Chronobiology.