Kiyotaka Hara is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Nutritional and Environmental Sciences, University of Shizuoka. He is interested in the development and improvement of microbial fine chemical production through metabolic engineering and synthetic bioengineering, with a particular focus on microbial intracellular energy metabolism. Recently, He represented a national research project, JST-Mirai Program to develop photo-energetic cell factories as a game changing technology in bioproduction.
Kiyotaka Hara received his B.S, M.S. and Ph.D in biochemical and biophysical research from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1997, 1999 and 2001, respectively. After working as a postdoctoral researcher in the national ATP system project team, he moved to a fermentation company, Kyowa Hakko Kogyo, Co. Ltd. From 2006 to 2009, he resumed academic research as a research associate at the Consolidated Research Institute for Advanced Science and Medical Care, Waseda University. From 2009 to 2015, he was engaged in biorefinery research as an assistant professor and associate professor at the Organization of Advanced Science and Technology, Kobe University. Since 2015, he has led a research group at University of Shizuoka as a principal investigator.