Kaito Hioki

Kaito received his B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Oregon State University in 2021. During his undergraduate career, he studied regulatory features of cervical cancer and Type 2 diabetes using a correlation network model. He joined the MCB-PhD program at UMass in Fall 2021 and became a member of the Pobezinsky lab. Kaito’s research focuses on a phenomenon of intercellular transfer between tumor cells and immune cells within the tumor microenvironment. The sharing of cellular material between immune cells and non-lymphoid tissue has been reported in various systems; however, the functional significance of the event remains largely unexplored. Kaito's current project aims to characterize the cell types and mechanisms involved in the event. He was recently awarded a two-year, NIH-funded Biotechnology Training Program Fellowship, which is designed to educate students in the fundamentals of biochemistry through lecture and lab courses and an industrial internship.