Dr. Takashi Angata obtained his BS, MS, and Ph.D degrees from the University of Tokyo. After his post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Ajit Varki at UCSD (1998–2003), he joined the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (2003–2009), Osaka University (2009–2011), and RIKEN (2011–2013) in Japan as a faculty member. He joined the Institute of Biological Chemistry, Academia Sinica (Taiwan) in 2013 as an Associate Research Fellow and holds a joint appointment as an Associate Professor at the Institute of Biochemical Sciences, National Taiwan University (Taiwan). His research has focused on sialic acids and Siglecs, i.e., “sensors/receptors” of sialic acids. His past studies include the molecular cloning of human and mouse Siglecs, the discovery of polymorphisms in human Siglecs and their association with diseases, and the development of methodologies to identify glycoprotein ligands for Siglecs, among others. His laboratory continues to explore the function of Siglecs and sialoglycans in various biomedical settings in which the immune system is involved, such as cancer, autoimmunity, infectious diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases.