Dr. Osamu Honmou, M.D., Ph.D. is the chairman and Professor in the Department of Neural Regenerative Medicine at Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine in Japan. He received his M.D. from Sapporo Medical University in 1989 and obtained his Ph.D. in Medicine from the same institution in 1999. After completing his neurosurgical residency at Sapporo Medical University Hospital, he moved to New York University Medical Center in the U.S. in 1991, where he first studied basic neuroscience. He then moved to Yale University in 1992 and began working on projects in the field of neural regeneration. He has served as a Lecturer in Neurology at Yale University School of Medicine since 1995.

He returned to Sapporo Medical University in 1995 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery and launched a neuroscience and regeneration research laboratory. He conducted a pilot clinical study on autologous mesenchymal stem cells derived from bone marrow for stroke patients in 2006-2007. He became a Professor in the Department of Neural Repair and Therapeutics in 2008 and was appointed as the chairman of and Professor in the Department of Neural Regenerative Medicine at Sapporo Medical University in 2011. He is a board-certified neurosurgeon in Japan and also holds a Visiting Assistant Professorship in the Department of Neurology at Yale University School of Medicine.

Currently, he is leading a team that is conducting a phase III, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial in patients with stroke that started in 2013. He also launched a clinical trial of intravenous administration of autologous mesenchymal stem cells in patients with spinal cord injury at Sapporo Medical University in 2013. His professional specialties are central nervous system diseases and his main research objectives are to pursue a better understanding of these diseases at a fundamental level and to develop regenerative therapies with innovative approaches.