Summary
Toshiaki Katayama is a bioinformatics researcher and project professor with 25 years’ experience building interoperable life-science databases and tools from Tokyo. As a long-time leader at DBCLS and the BioData Science Initiative, he architects and maintains widely used platforms such as TogoWS, TogoGenome, TogoVar and RDF/-SPARQL tooling while organizing the international BioHackathon to drive community standards and integration. He founded the BioRuby project in 2000 and earlier contributed to KEGG and genome projects (including S. pombe and a tardigrade effort), blending hands-on software development with genomic research. Known for pragmatic open-source engineering, he pursues uncommon questions about the molecular boundary between active and cryptobiotic life—and in 2023 even had his own genome sequenced.
24 years of coding experience
20 years of employment as a software developer
Bioinformatics, Bioinformatics at Kyoto University