Dr. Masayo Yumoto, team leader of Regenerative Medicine Research & Planning Division, Rohto Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., has been holding a leadership role in the joint research lab at the Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Tokyo, to develop next generation cell therapy method using human mesenchymal stem cells. Prior to her current role, she led a basic research group for skin care products focusing on the proliferative and migratory ability of the somatic stem cells. Through the screening of numerous natural ingredients, her team have found several ingredients for the skin rejuvenation and launched skincare products with a concept of stem cell activation.

Dr. Yumoto received her B.S (1999) and Ph.D. (2005) from the University of Tokyo, where she revealed a novel role of Sall4, a Zinc-finger transcriptional factor, in the maintenance of mouse ES cell pluripotency and organ development. After completed her Ph.D. study, she joined Dr. Rik Derynck’s lab at the University of California San Francisco, as a postdoctoral researcher to explore the mechanisms of TGF-b signaling for the maintenance of human ES/iPS cell pluripotency. She found out the distinctive roles of the downstream effectors of TGF-b signaling, Smad2 and Smad3, there and proposed a fine-tuning mechanism between the pluripotent and the differentiated states. She also won the research grant from the Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research (PBBR) for the collaborative project with Dr. Zev Gartner in 2011, for elucidating the interaction between niche cells and pluripotent cells within a human ES cell colony.