Rintaro Hashizume, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in the Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology, trained as a physician-scientist at the St. Marianna University School of Medicine in Kawasaki, Japan. He completed his post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. He was recruited to the University California San Francisco (UCSF) Brain Tumor Research Center (BTRC) and became an Assistant Professor and then joined to Northwestern University as tenure track faculty. He served as a principal investigator and educator at Northwestern University until 2023, when he was recruited to University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) as Associate Professor. His clinical interests/major research include: understanding the molecular mechanism of the development of pediatric brain tumors (DIPG, AT/RT, Ependymoma), genetic and epigenetic targeted therapy, development patient-derived animal models, and new drug delivery to the brain tumor.