Yoshiaki Ito studied animal virology and obtained his doctorate in Medical Sciences (MD PhD) from Tohoku University, Japan. After his postdoctoral training in Duke University and Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, he became a staff member of ICRF where he discovered the middle T antigen of polyomavirus. Subsequently, he became Chief of the Cell Transformation Section in the National Cancer Institute, USA.

Professor Yoshiaki Ito

He moved to the Institute of Virus Research, Kyoto University, in 1984 where he contributed to the establishment of the RUNX gene family as a new frontier of cancer research and where he discovered that RUNX3 is a major tumor suppressor of gastric cancer. He served as Director of the Institute of Virus Research, Kyoto University, from 1995 to 2001. In 2002, he moved to Singapore to join the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology as a Principal Investigator, and at the same time took up the position of Director of the Oncology Research Institute at the National University of Singapore.