Dr. Akira Otaka received his bachelor’s degree from Kyoto University (KU) in 1984. He obtained his Ph.D. from KU in 1989 under the direction of the late Professor Haruaki Yajima. He obtained an Assistant Professor position in Professor Nobutaka Fujii's group at KU in 1989. He was promoted to Associate Professor in Fujii's group in 1995. He is currently a Professor at Tokushima University (since 2005) and President of the Japanese Peptide Society (since 2024). He has received the Japan Peptide Society (JPS) Award for Young Scientists (1997), the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan (PSJ) Award for Young Scientists (1999), the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan, Astellas Award for Organic Chemistry in Life Sciences (2012), the PSJ Award (2022), and the JPS Award (2023). His research interests include the development of new reactions for peptide and protein chemistry.