In 2002, I joined Flinders University as a research officer at the School of Medicine. I spent 4 years at Kagoshima University as the Associate Professor of Physiology from 2009. In 2013, I returned to Flinders University as the Mary Overton Neuroscience Research Fellow and the head of the Integrative Neuroscience Lab at Centre for Neuroscience. My background is in biology, physiology and neuroscience, concentrating on brain circuitry controlling essential bodily function via the autonomic nervous system.

2009-2013 Associate Professor, School of Medicine, Kagoshima University, Japan

2009           Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Neurosciences, Medical University of South Carolina, USA

2002-2009 Senior Research Officer, Department of Human Physiology, School of Medicine, Flinders University, Australia

2000-2002 International Society of Hypertension Fellowship, Howard Florey Institute of Experimental and Medicine, Australia

1998-2001 Assistant lecturer, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Japan

My principal research motivation has been to discover how the brain regulates autonomic physiological functions in response to changes in emotional and environmental states, using anesthetized/conscious experimental animals.

Biotechnology has progressed significantly in the last twenty years, and greatly contributed to understanding biology/physiology at a cellular level (in-vitro study). It is now time to apply biotechnology to Brain Neuroscience to understand biology/physiology at an individual organism level (in-vivo study)

My research employs cutting-edge genetic engineering technologies i.e. optogenetics and Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs (DREADD) to elucidate brain system of live animals. These techniques have been emerged in the last decade and will be expected to open up novel therapeutic possibilities in near future. My research project will be of basic theoretical biological importance, and will provide a foundation for understanding neural circuitry controlling essential physiological function and its link with autonomic dysfunction such as rapid/slow heart rate, hypertension and diabetes.

• Neuroscience (Kagoshima University) (2)