Rate My Professor Masanobu Oshima

Professor Masanobu Oshima is a professor in the Division of Genetics at the Cancer Research Institute and is affiliated with the WPI Nano Life Science Institute at Kanazawa University. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Hokkaido University in 1986 and completed a master’s degree in the Graduate School, Division of Veterinary Medicine at Hokkaido University in 1988. Prior to joining Kanazawa University, he held positions at Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Banyu Tsukuba Research Institute, Merck Research Laboratories, and the Department of Pharmacology at Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine.

Professor Oshima’s research centers on experimental pathology with a focus on gastrointestinal cancer, inflammation-associated carcinogenesis, Wnt signaling, and the development of genetic mouse models to study tumor initiation, progression, and metastasis. He has contributed to key publications including the 1996 Cell paper on suppression of intestinal polyposis by COX-2 inhibition and numerous studies in journals such as Nature Communications, Cancer Research, and Gastroenterology examining inflammatory microenvironments and genetic drivers of colorectal and gastric tumorigenesis. He served as Director of the Cancer Research Institute from 2013 to 2017 and received the JCA-Mauvernay Award in 2012 and the 33rd Tomizo Yoshida Award in 2024. His work has advanced understanding of cancer biology through organoid models and nanoscale imaging approaches.