Hidehiko HIRAKAWA received a BS degree from the University of Tokyo in 2000. After earning his PhD from the University of Tokyo in 2005, he moved to the University of Kansas to study oxidoreductases under the supervision of Prof. Julian Limburg. He was appointed as an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo at the beginning of 2009. In the spring of 2018, he joined the faculty of the University of Tsukuba. His research specialties are protein engineering and enzyme engineering.