Dr. Rio Sugimura received his M.D. from Osaka University, Japan, in 2008, and his Ph.D. in Stem Cells and Regeneration from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, USA, in 2012. He has been trained at world-leading institutes, including Harvard Medical School and Kyoto University. He is an Assistant Professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, and a principal investigator at the Centre for Translational Stem Cell Biology, Hong Kong. Dr. Sugimura is a Council Member of the FIMSA Federation of Immunological Societies of Asia-Oceania. Dr. Sugimura is an editorial member of the international journals Cellular Reprogramming, Differentiation, Frontiers in Immunology, Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, and Scientific Reports. Dr. Sugimura is a member of American Association of Immunologists (AAI), American Society of Hematology (ASH), Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), Association for Cancer Immunotherapy (CIMT), Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), International Society of Experimental Hematology (ISEH), International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS), the North American Vascular Biology Organization (NAVBO), Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC). Dr. Sugimura is a recipient of the Gilead Liver Disease Scholar Program, Longevity Catalyst Award from National Academy of Medicine, the ASH Scholar Award, Hong Kong Government funding (RGC ECS, RGC GRF, Co-I RGC CRF), March of Dimes, HKU Deeptech 100 award, Young Investigator Competition by Karger, Early Career Grant from Japanese Ministry, Genius Award from Young Hematologist Society in Japan, Takeda Science Foundation, iPS Academia Japan Foundation, SMRF Fellowship, Kanehara Memorial Foundation, and Uehara Memorial Foundation. Dr. Sugimura mastered grantsmanship at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Scientific Writing Retreat 2019 and attracted international grants after joining HKU.

Dr. Rio Sugimura is recognized for his outstanding contributions to the field of hematology, immunology, and stem cell biology. His lab aims to synthetic immunology by cell fate manipulation and immuno-engineering. His lab spans into HKUMed campus and Hong Kong Science Park, leveraging single-cell technology, computational science, stem cell, and organoid engineering. Dr. Rio Sugimura is a Director of the Blood Engineering Laboratory, a PI of the Centre for Translational Stem Cell Biology, and an Assistant Professor of HKUMed. He is an expert in stem cell differentiation, organoids, single-cell technology, and synthetic biology. He has received the Genius Award from the Japanese Young Hematologist Society, the Young Investigator Competition Award from Karger, the Gilead Liver Disease Program, and the March of Dimes Scholar. He holds HKU Deeptech 100 from iDendron and HKSTP to support his spin-off SynHealer. His major contribution includes the identification of the crucial cellular metabolisms that regulate blood stem cells (Sugimura, 2012. Cell), and the exploitation of the genetic program to specify blood stem cells from human pluripotent stem cells (Sugimura, 2017. Nature). Before joining HKU, Dr. Sugimura established platforms of human immune cell-generating organoids (Ohta & Sugimura, 2019. JoVE) and organ-on-a-chip (Sugimura, 2020. Biomed. Microdevices). His major discovery at HKU includes the spatiotemporal gene expression landscape of human embryonic organoids (Chao, 2023, Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy) and a novel role of immune checkpoint PD-L1 in macrophage inflammatory programs (Cao, 2023. Life Science Alliance). He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, such as Nature, Cell, and Genes & Development, which received 1,668 citations (Google Scholar).

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