Poster
First Name | Koji |  |
Last Name | Ono |
Title | MD, PhD |
Affiliation | Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University |
E-mail | Koji.ono@ompu.ac.jp |
Telephone | Mobile | +81-070-5438-6522 |
Office | +81-72-684-5723 |
Current Position | Director, BNCT Joint Clinical Institute, Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University |
Education | 1974/1984 Graduated of Kyoto University Medical School and Ph.D. from Kyoto University |
Professional Experiences | 1979-1989/1989-1991 Assistant Prof. / Lecturer of Kyoto University Hospital 1984-1986 Postdoctoral fellow in UCSF (USA) and University of Essen (Germany) 1991-2013/1992-2013 Professor of KURRI / Director of Particle Radiation Oncology Research Center 2013-Present Emeritus Professor of Kyoto University and Visiting prof. of KURRI 2018-Present Chairman of Kansai BNCT Medical Center, Professor of OMC 2020-Present Director of BNCT Joint Clinical Institute of OMC 2007-2015 Council for Medicine of International Association of Radiation Research (IARR) 2003-2007 Founder and 1st President of the Japanese Society of Neutron Capture Therapy (JSNCT) 1989-2013/2000-2012/2008/2009 Councilor / Executive Board Member/ President / Annual Meeting President of JASTRO 1998-present Councilor of ISNCT |
Awards and Honors | 2002 JRR (Journal of Radiation Research) Terasima Award 2010 ISNCT Hatanaka Award 2013 JRRS(Japan Radiation Research Society) Award 2018 JASTRO Gold Medal 2018 Distinguished Global Achievement Award (ICNCT-18 in Taiwan) 2019 Radiation Effects Research Achievement Award (Radiation Effect Association) 2019 SGH Special Award for Cancer Research (GSH Foundation) 2020 JRR (Journal of Radiation Research) Terasima Award 2021 The Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology- Awards for Science and Technology (Development Category) |
Prof. Koji Ono is the Director of the Kansai Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) Medical Center at Osaka Medical College, Osaka, Japan. He is also the Director of the Joint Clinical BNCT Research Center and an Emeritus Professor of Kyoto University. Prof. Ono is a pioneering figure in the field of BNCT and has made seminal contributions to the development of neutron-based cancer therapy in both research and clinical practice.
He received respectively his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine in 1974 and 1984. Early in his career, he served as an assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Therapy at Kawasaki Medical School and at Kyoto University Hospital, where he began his long-standing commitment to radiation oncology and cancer therapy. Seeking to expand his expertise, he pursued postdoctoral research at the Radiation Oncology Research Laboratory of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF. He also served as a visiting researcher at the Institute for Medical Radiation Biology at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, further broadening his international experience in the application of ionizing radiation in medicine.
In 1989, he was appointed Lecturer in Radiation Oncology at the Kyoto University Faculty of
Medicine. Two years later, in 1991, he became Professor at the Research Department for Reactor Medicine within the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute (KURRI), a unique facility integrating nuclear reactor technologies with biomedical applications. He assumed the role of Department Head in 1992 and was instrumental in building the research infrastructure that supported clinical BNCT applications. In 2005, Prof. Ono became the founding Head of the Particle Radiation Oncology Research Center at KURRI, where he led major clinical trials and translational research programs focused on developing BNCT as a viable and safe treatment option for intractable cancers.
Prof. Ono is widely recognized as one of the foremost global authorities on BNCT. He played a central role in establishing Japan as the first country to approve BNCT for clinical use in 2020, specifically for the treatment of recurrent or unresectable head and neck cancers. His research has focused on the development of accelerator-based neutron sources, boron delivery agents, and optimized clinical protocols for BNCT.
In addition to his institutional leadership roles, Prof. Ono served as the inaugural Director of the Japanese Society of Neutron Capture Therapy (JSNCT) and continues to contribute to the global BNCT community as a Councilor of the International Society for Neutron Capture Therapy (ISNCT). Over the course of his career, he has published more than 400 peer-reviewed articles and his work has been cited over 10,000 times, reflecting his deep and sustained impact on the fields of radiation oncology and particle therapy.
Prof. Ono’s scientific contributions have been widely recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the Terasima Award (2002, 2020) from the Journal of Radiation Research, the Hatanaka Award (2010) from ISNCT, the Academic Award (2013) from the Japan Radiation Research Society (JRRS), the Gold Medal (2018) from the Japanese Society for Radiation Oncology (JASTRO), the Distinguished Global Achievement Award at ICNCT-18 in Taiwan (2018), the
Radiation Effects Research Achievement Award (2019), the SGH Special Award for Cancer Research
(2019), and the 2021 Commendation for Science and Technology (Development Category) from Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).