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Daisuke Ito

Dai’s goal is to direct an independent program as an expert on non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) using comparative oncology approaches. Dai earned his DVM and PhD in Veterinary Medicine at Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan. He became interested in immunology and oncology when he saw many dog patients with NHL at Veterinary Teaching Hospital of Hokkaido University. Dai learned techniques of molecular biology through his pre-doctoral work, in which he studied the mechanisms of hereditary spherocytosis in cattle under the guidance of Dr. Mutsumi Inaba. His research as a graduate student was published in Journal of Cell Science. His training has continued during his first post-doctoral training. Dai spent two years completing post-doc research project on mouse natural killer cell biology with Dr. Koho Iizuka at the Masonic Cancer Center (MCC), University of Minnesota. Through this work, Dai got experience in immunological methods, including bone marrow chimeras and advanced flow cytometry; the results of this work were published in the PNAS in 2009. Dai joined our lab in 2008 to gain additional training in comparative oncology under the guidance of Dr. Jaime Modiano. His primary objective in his project is to identify and characterize tumor-initiating cells in primary lymphoma. In the future, Dai wishes to conduct clinical studies to develop new strategies targeting lymphoma-initiating cells that will improve survival and eventually achieve cures for canine and human NHL.

Dai moved to Minnesota with his wife, Maiko, and their cat, Coco, in 2006. Now they have another family member, Leah, who was born in the end of 2009. Their lives have greatly changed and become busier than before, but they really enjoy their new life with Leah.

Dai can be contacted by clicking here