Akihiko Kondo

Professor, Director of Biorefinery Center Kobe University Team Leader, Cell Factory Research Team, Center for Sustainable Resource Science, RIKEN (Yokohama). Department of Chemical Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kobe University Rokkodaicho, Nada, Kobe 657-8501, Japan

A. Kondo got his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, Kyoto University in 1988. He started his academic career at Department of Applied Chemistry, Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan as an associate professor. Then he moved Kobe University in 1995 and he was full professor in 2003. In 2007,　Kobe University established Biorefinery Center headed by A. Kondo as a director, and he is also leading the Biomass Engineering Program at RIKEN as a team leader from 2012.　He has become a member of Science Council Japan.

A. Kondo developed several biomass pretreatment technologies, cell surface display systems for yeast, bacteria and fungus, metabolic pathway design methods, metabolic analysis technologies, genome editing and synthesis technologies. He has also developed microbial cell factories for production of biofuels and various chemicals from biomass, cyanobacteria for production of starch, oil and chemicals from CO2.

A. Kondo was appointed as editor of the Journal of Biotechnology and editorial board members of 12 journals such as Biotechnology for Biofuels, Bioresource Technology, Microbial Cell Factories, FEMS Yeast Research, Journal of Biological Engineering, Metabolic Engineering Communications, etc.

He has published more than 570 peer reviewed international papers.