I graduated from Kumamoto University School of Medicine in Japan. After my Internal Medicine residency training at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, I pursued on further clinical and research training in Hematology/Oncology at National Institutes of Health where my interests in hematology and passion to help patients with serious blood disorders deepened. Especially, the curative potential of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) was very attractive. After joining City of Hope my translational research remained focused on improving outcomes of HCT by enhancing immune recovery against infectious organisms such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) and against leukemia/lymphoma (“graft-versus-leukemia effect”) without causing a detrimental side effect of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Our novel approach supported by the LLS-TRP uses gene-modified T cells (CAR T) which have a dual specificity against a leukemia target (CD19) and CMV, infused after HCT, and subsequently boosted by a CMV vaccine.