Dr. Hiroshi Kimura
Professor, Cell Biology Center. Tokyo Tech

Dr Kenji Suzuki
Professor, Laboratory for Future Interdisciplinary Research of Science and Technology, Tokyo Tech

I felt greatly honored to receive a 2021 Awards for Science and Technology (Research Category) at the Commendation for Science & Technology from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan. This Award was awarded to individuals who have done innovative research and development that would contribute to the advancement of Japan’s science and technology. I received the Prize in recognition of my pioneering research and development of deep learning and its translation into practical applications in the medical field. Recently, deep learning in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) drew enthusiastic attention as a breakthrough technology. Deep learning has been actively applying to various tasks in many fields. I invented one of early deep learning models in 1994. Since then, my group has been developing major technologies in deep learning and commercialized them in the field of medical AI. We developed denoising in images, separation of bones from soft tissue in x-ray images, semantic segmentation, end-to-end learning, radiation dose reduction in CT and mammography, and deep learning reconstruction. These topics are now becoming active areas of research. Since our original deep learning models are versatile, we plan to apply them to tasks in various fields. Finally, I am grateful to all members in my current and previous laboratories and my collaborators as well as my mentors and senior colleagues who supported my laboratories and myself.

Dr. Wataru Hijikata
Associate Professor, School of Engineering, Tokyo Tech