Kazuto Kato

Kazuto Kato, Ph.D., is Professor of biomedical ethics and public policy at the Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, and a visiting academic affiliate of the Centre for Health, Law and Emerging Technologies (HeLEX) of the University of Oxford. Professor Kato has a Ph.D. degree in developmental biology from Kyoto University. After finishing postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge with Sir John Gurdon, he started to work on ethical and social issues related to life sciences. Professor Kato is currently specializing in biomedical ethics, research governance and patient involvement in medical research.

Professor Kato has served as a member of various international projects and academic societies to include the ELSI group of the International HapMap Project; the Ethics and Governance Committee of the International Cancer Genome Consortium; and the Steering Committee of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH). In Japan, he served as a member of the Expert Panel on Bioethics of the Council for Science, Technology, and Innovation (CSTI) in the Cabinet Office between 2010 to 2020. He was also a member of the WHO Expert Advisory Committee on Developing Global Standards for Governance and Oversight of Human Genome Editing between 2019 to 2021. He is currently a member of the International Panel of Experts of the Bioethics Advisory Committee (BAC) of Singapore government. Since June 2023, he has been serving as the team leader of the ELSI group of the project "the Action Plan for Whole Genome Analysis" funded by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan.