Mayumi KimuraMayumi Kimura

Affiliation:International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine, University of Tsukuba

Research Title

Neuroscience

Think Global, Act Local – facilitating world-leading sleep research from IIIS

01 Major achievement

Gazea M, Patchev AV, Anderzhanova E, Leidmaa E, Pissioti A, Flachskamm C, Almeida OFX, Kimura M. (2018) Restoration of serotonergic homeostasis in the lateral hypothalamus rescues sleep disturbances induced by early-life obesity J Neurosci 38:441–451.

Kumar D, Dedic N, Flachskamm C, Voulé S, Deussing JM, Kimura, M. (2015) Cacna1c (Cav1.2) modulates EEG rhythm and REM sleep recovery. Sleep 38:1371-1380.

Kimura M, Müller-Preuss P, Lu A, Wiesner E, Flachskamm F, Wurst W, Holsboer F, Deussing JM. (2010) Conditional corticotropin-releasing hormone overexpression in the mouse forebrain enhances rapid eye movement sleep. Mol Psychiatry 15:154-165.

Kimura M, Kodama T, Aguila MC, Zhang SQ, Inoué S. (2000) Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) modulates rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM sleep in rats. J Neurosci 20: 5544-5551.

02 Education/Academic background and major awards

Education/Academic background

Graduated from Kanazawa University (MSc in biology) and completed a Ph.D. in physiology at Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Japan. Mayumi Kimura was formally appointed at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University (1989-2003), The University of Tennessee, Memphis (1990-1993), The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas (1994-1995), Louisiana State University Pennington Biomedical Research Center (1995-1996), and Tulane University School of Medicine (1997-1998). From 2003 till 2018, she was appointed as a Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry. During the last 35 years, she specialized in pre-clinical/basic sleep research with a focus on the neuro-humoral mechanisms of sleep-wake regulation. She advocated that sleep-wake behavior is under strong homeostatic control via immune challenge induction, gender-specific changes, and stress-driven sleep responses. Back in Japan since June, 2018, Mayumi has shifted her scientific career from bench to administration. First appointed as Project Associate Professor at International Research Center for Neurointelligence (WPI-IRCN), The University of Tokyo (2018-2020), then as Professor at WPI-IIIS, University of Tsukuba. Currently she serves as IIIS Administrative Director (2021-).

Awards

     
1999 Promising Scientist Award (the 4th), Society of Japanese Women Scientists
2001 Young Investigator Award (the 6th), Japanese Society of Sleep Research
2002 Biofuture Award, Institute of Biomaterials & Bioengineering, Tokyo Medical & Dental University