Akimitsu Okamoto obtained his PhD in synthetic chemistry and biological chemistry from Kyoto University in 1998, where he was appointed Assistant Professor in 1999 after a year as a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He moved to RIKEN as an initiative research scientist (unit leader) in 2006. He joined the faculty at the University of Tokyo in 2012 as Professor. His research focuses on the design, synthesis, and physical properties of new, manmade biopolymers with various functionalities, and the design of unique organic chemical systems for recognizing, transforming, and visualizing a single component or atom in biopolymers of interest.