He received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 2002. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Arizona and the University of California, Los Angeles. He works in the field of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering for chemical production in microorganisms. His research program involves two primary research goals: 1) to develop a platform for valuable chemical production from carbon dioxide using cyanobacteria, and 2) to develop novel biosynthetic pathways to produce chemical compounds which microbes naturally produce in trace amounts or not at all. He received the Hellman Fellowship in 2012 and the NSF CAREER award in 2014.