Shinichi Morishita (computer scientist)

Shinichi Morishita (森下 真一, September 18, 1960 - ) is a Japanese computer scientist and bioinformatician. In computer science, he is best known for proposing a widely-used heuristic algorithm for enumerating statistical association rules. In the field of genetics, he made significant contributions to the construction of the first large-scale phenotypic database of yeast mutants, the first draft of the medaka genome, the confirmation of the two rounds of whole-genome duplications and dynamic genome rearrangements in early vertebrates, and the discovery of chromatin-associated periodicity in genetic variation downstream of transcriptional start sites.
He is a professor of the Department of Computational Biology and Medical Sciences, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo since 2003. He also holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo since 2009.
==Career==
Shinichi Morishita was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. He graduated from Kaisei High School and entered the University of Tokyo in 1979. Under the mentorship of mathematician and computer scientist Masahiko Sato and Nobuo Yoneda, he received a B.S. in 1983, a M.S. in 1985, and a Ph.D. in 1990 from Department of Information Science, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo. 
While working at IBM Japan from 1985 to 1997, Morishita visited the Department of Computer Science, Stanford University from 1990 to 1992, where he studied recursive database query optimization under the mentorship of Turing Award laureate computer scientist Jeffrey D. Ullman.
Morishita moved to the Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo as a visiting associate professor in 1997, moved to the Department of Information Science, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo as an associate professor in 1999, and moved to the Department of Computational Biology, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo as a professor in 2003. 
Morishita developed a widely-used method of mining statistical association rules in 2000. Morishita and his colleagues collaborated with biologist Yoshikazu Ohya to build the first large-scale phenotyping database of yeast mutants in 2005. They reported the first draft of the medaka genome and confirmed the two rounds of whole-genome duplications and dynamic genome rearrangements in early vertebrates with biologist Hiroyuki Takeda in 2007. Using the medaka genome, they uncovered chromatin-associated periodicity in genetic variation downstream of transcriptional start sites with Nobel laureate biologist Andrew Fire in 2009. 
Since 2011, Morishita and his colleagues have used long-read sequencers to refine the medaka genome assembly in 2017 with Hiroyuki Takeda and the C. elegans genome assembly in 2019 with Andrew Fire and Erich Schwarz. They developed software programs to detect tandem repeats of unit strings from long reads along with computer scientist Gene Myers , discovered novel tandem repeats associated with brain disorders with medical scientist Shoji Tsuji, and constructed a database of complex tandem repeats within individual human genomes.
Category:Japanese computer scientists
Category:Academic staff of the University of Tokyo
Category:University of Tokyo alumni