Akira KINJO, Professor, Institute for Protein Research

Akira KINJO, Professor, Institute for Protein Research

Osaka University established the Institute for Protein Research and has been at the leading edge of  protein research in Japan from early on. Thus, the base of the Protein Data Bank Japan (PDBj) is placed at Osaka University. Associate Professor Kinjo established a database and played a major role in its management and control. In 2014, he received the Presidential Awards for Encouragement for his achievement.

The role of PDBj is to register structures of proteins examined throughout world and publish the database of protein structures. Associate Professor Kinjo specializes in prediction on steric structure of proteins. At the National Institute of Genetics, he was a user of the PDBj which had just started, while he holding an administrative position at the Institute for Protein Research, continuing with database architecture. Although he said modestly "I got very lucky," at Kyoto University, he worked so hard that he skipped to graduate school. In his current position, he identified types of steric structure of proteins and organized new classification methods. In his warm personality, one can see his strength of character that he spares no effort in doing best at his position.

Almost all the data examined in the world is registered with the PDBj. Prof. KINJO said, "The ample data that has accumulated has deepened our understanding of the close relationship between proteins' steric structure and their functions, but new knowledge is still being discovered."
PDBj is expected to play a big role in using proteins and predicting their functions.

About Professor Akira KINJO

Professor Kinjo graduated from the Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University in 1998 and from the Department of Genetics, School of Life Science, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies in 2001. After serving at the National Institute of Genetics, he took his current position as a professor at the Institute for Protein Research in 2009.
He holds his doctorate in science and specializes in database research on proteins' steric structure, life, health, and medical informatics. He won the Young Scientist Award from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in 2012 for his "Research regarding database technology for protein's steric structure and natural history" and the BIOPHYSICS Dissertation Award from the The Biophysical Society of Japan in 2014.


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