Dr. Kasahara is the lead inventor of Tocagen’s core technology and an internationally recognized pioneer in gene therapy. As of March 1, 2013 he has received approximately $12.8 million in gene therapy-related grant funding from the NIH, the Department of Defense, and other public and private funding agencies. In addition, he has received a multi-million dollar grant awards from the NIH and the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), and certain Tocagen employees may be paid as consultants under this grant. Dr. Kasahara currently serves as a Professor of Cell Biology at the University of Miami (“UM”) and is a co-leader of the Viral Oncology Program at the Slyvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at UM. Previously, he was Professor of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles (“UCLA”), with a joint appointment as Professor of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology. He also served as the Director of the Molecular Vector Core Facility for the UCLA CURE Research Center and the Vector Shared Resource for the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. Prior to joining UM, he served on the faculty of the University of Southern California (“USC”) for seven years, where he was the Director of USC’s Vector Core Facility for the USC Institute of Genetic Medicine and Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Kasahara is highly published and sought after as a lecturer in the field of cancer gene therapy. He served two terms as a member of the Scientific Committee on Viral Gene Transfer Vectors for the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (“ASGCT”), is the immediate past President of the International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy of Cancer (“ISCGT”), and is currently a member of the Board of Councilors for the Japan Society of Gene Therapy. He is also a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, Japan Society of Gene Therapy, Japan Society for Cancer Chemotherapy, and the British Society of Gene Therapy, and is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Oncology / Division of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Oxford. Dr. Kasahara received an MD and PhD from Tokyo Medical and Dental University, completed his residency in Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (“UCSF”), and is board certified in Clinical Pathology. He also received a PhD in Endocrinology/Physiology from UCSF, where he trained under Y.W. Kan, MD, a recipient of the Lasker Award.
