Dr. Akihiko Kondo received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University in Chemical Engineering (1988). He was appointed as full professor of Kobe University in Department of Chemical Science and Engineering in 2003. He was appointed a dean and professor of Graduate School of Science, Technology and Innovation at Kobe University in 2016. He became a deputy director of RIKEN CSRS in 2020 and Vice President of Kobe University in 2021. A. Kondo has developed various platform technologies such as cell surface display systems, metabolic pathway design tools, metabolic analysis technologies, genome editing and long chain DNA synthesis technologies. He also has developed biofoundry platform for rapid development of various microbial cell factories for production of biofuels and chemicals. He is the scientific founder of several companies including BioPalette (genome editing), Synprogen (genome synthesis), AlgaeNexus (microalgae) and Bacchus Bio innovation (Biofoundry). He has published more than 780 peer reviewed international papers.