Tatsuya Akutsu received his B.Eng. (1984) and M.Eng. (1986 ) in Aeronautics and D.Eng. (1989) in Information Engineering from the University of Tokyo. From 1989 to 1994, he was with the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. From 1994 to 1996, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Gunma University. From 1996 to 2001, he was an Associate Professor at the Human Genome Center, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo. Since 2001, he has been a Professor at the Bioinformatics Center, Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University. His research interests include bioinformatics and the design and analysis of algorithms.