ASTRA CONFERENCE 2026

Kazuhiro Kakimi

Invited Speaker, Kindai University, Japan

Kazuhiro Kakimi is a Professor in the Department of Immunology at the Faculty of Medicine, Kindai University, Japan. He is a physician-scientist specializing in tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy. His research focuses on understanding anti-tumor immune responses and developing novel immunotherapeutic strategies based on tumor-specific antigens.
Dr. Kakimi received his MD and PhD from Kyoto University. His laboratory investigates the tumor microenvironment and T-cell responses using genomic and immunological approaches, including transcriptome analysis and T-cell receptor repertoire profiling. A major focus of his work is the identification and characterization of neoantigens and their application to personalized cancer immunotherapy, such as neoantigen-based vaccines and T-cell–based therapies.
His group also studies mechanisms of response and resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors, aiming to identify biomarkers and develop strategies to improve patient stratification. Dr. Kakimi has published widely in the field of cancer immunology and actively collaborates with national and international research groups.