Yasuhiro Kajihara received his PhD from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1993 under the supervision of Prof. H. Hashimoto. He spent two years at the Life Science Research Laboratory of Japan Tobacco Inc. as a post doctoral fellow. During this period he studied the synthesis of glycosyltransferase inhibitors and methods for sugar nucleotide synthesis. In 1995 he joined Yokohama City University as an Assistant Professor and was then promoted to Associate Professor in 2001 and Full Professor in 2007. At YCU, he developed chemoenzymatic synthesis of oligosaccharides as well as chemical synthesis of glycoproteins. In 2009 he moved to the Department of Chemistry at Osaka University.