Kentaro Nagaoka is an Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Infectious Diseases at Toyama University Graduate School of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Toyama, Japan. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the Faculty of Medicine and Graduate School of Medicine, Hokkaido University, graduating in 2004 (MD), and 2014 (PhD). He has dedicated his fundamental and clinical research from 2004 through 2022 to respirology, infectious disease, and intensive care as a physician and researcher. His current and previous research interests include severe pneumonia and respiratory failure, including those related to COVID-19. He is a member of several professional societies: the Japanese Society of Infectious Diseases, the Japanese Respiratory Society, the Japanese Society of Internal Medicine, and the American Society for Microbiology.