Personal Data

• Name: Yoji Kato
• Address Correspondence: School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, 1-1-12 Shinzaike-honcho, Himeji, Hyogo, JAPAN. 670-0092
• TEL: +81-792-92-9413
• FAX: +81-792-93-5710

Position history

• Education: 1986-1990 Faculty of Agriculture, Nagoya University 1990-1992 Master's Course of Faculty of Agriculture, Nagoya University 1992-1995 Doctor's Course of Faculty of Agriculture, Nagoya University 1995 Ph. D.: Oxidative Modification of Collagen Related to Biological Aging 1995-1998 Postdoctoral Fellow, Nagoya University (under the direction of Prof. T. Osawa) 1998-2003 Research Associate at Himeji Institute of Technology (HIT) 2003-2012 Associate Professor. The HIT was integrated with two other universities into "University of Hyogo", April 2004.
• 2006-2007 Visiting Fellow, Free Radical Research Group, Department of Pathology, University of Otago Christchurch, Christchurch, New Zealand
• 2012- Professor. (University of Hyogo)
• 2013- (hold also a post of Research Institute for Food and Nutritional Science (RIFNS), University of Hyogo)
• 2015- (Director of the RIFNS)

Occupation:

• Director (Principal Investigator) of Free Radical and Food Function (FRF2) Laboratory, Professor, School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo
• Memberships: Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Agrochemistry; The Japanese Biochemical Society; Society for Free Radical Research JAPAN (Councilor); Japanese Society for Food Factors (Councilor)
• Awards: the excellent price for poster presentation at the 9th meeting of Japanese Society of Food Factor (2004), the excellent prize for poster presentation at the Symposium of University of Hyogo (2011), The SFRR Japan Award of Scientific Excellence (2014).

Current Project (Areas of expertise)

Research Interests:

• (1) Oxidative damages of biomolecules by reactive oxygen species including reactive nitrogen species and reactive halogenating species.
  • Estimation of oxidative biomarkers from urine and/or blood may be useful for evaluation of oxidative stress in our body. Therefore, we are interested in specific oxidative biomarkers for reactive (oxygen/nitrogen/halogen) species. Among targets, the modification of amino acid residues has been examined by chemical and immunochemical approaches. We have found novel oxidative modifications, fragmentation by proline oxidation (via 2-pyrrolidone structure), and lipid-lysine adducts such as hexanoyl-lysine (HEL) and propanoyl-lysine (propionyl-lysine, PRL).
• (2) Prevention of the oxidative damages by food components such as polyphenol.
  • To keep our health, "food" is one of the important factors. We are interested in the prevention of oxidative modification by phenolic antioxidants, which have been considered as "classical" antioxidants for lipid peroxidation. Inhibition of myeloperoxidase and/or eosinophil peroxidase by antioxidants has been examined. During the study, recently we have found a novel glycoside, leptosperin, from manuka honey. We would like to know why the leptosperin is found in exclusively manuka honey and plausible contribution of ingested leptosperin to our health.

Equipments

• We have equipments for HPLC(-fluorescence/UV) x2 with an autosampler, gel experiments, centrifugal evaporators (x2), a UV-Vis spectrophotometer, real-time RT-PCR, and so on. We have shared a confocal microscopy, a quadrupole-time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometer (Sciex X500R), a PCR machine (C1000), a multi-channel microplate reader, a nano-spectrophotometer (nanoview), and a chemiluminescence/fluorescence detection system.