After graduating Niigata University School of Medicine (Niigata, Japan) with MD degree, Masahiro Hitomi studied protein-lipid interaction and protein chemistry at Niigata Universtiy Graduate School of Medicine and received his PhD degree. He then received postdoctoral training in molecular biology at the Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, Ohio) where he currently serves as Project Scientist in the Lerner Research Institute and as Ass. Professor for the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of the Case Western Reserve University.

My research interest is to understand how extrinsic factors alters intrinsic molecular signaling mechanisms that control critical cellular processes such as cell cycle progression, cell death, and cell fate choice. In addition to conventional molecular, pharmacological, and biochemical approaches, I employ single cell techniques that enable manipulation of specific molecular events and quantitative analyses of the consequence resulting from such manipulation in individual cells. Utilizing this approach I am currently investigating the biological role of asymmetric cell division in cancer stem cells.