Natsuhiko Kumasaka is currently a research scientist at the Center for Genomic Medicine (CGM), RIKEN. He received his doctoral degree from the Graduate School of Science and Technology at Keio University, where his research focused on combining fields such as statistics, data visualization, computer science and graphic design, as a means for understanding phenomena hidden behind the data. He developed a new data visualization technique called Textile Plot with Professor Ritei Shibata. After completing his thesis, he spent time developing tools for visualization of linkage disequilibrium and population structure analysis of SNP genotype data as a postdoc with Dr Naoyuki Kamatani at CGM, RIKEN.
With other collaborators at CGM, he currently develops PlatinumCNV, a Bayesian Gaussian mixture model for genotyping copy number polymorphisms using SNP array intensity data. He is also involved several genome-wide association studies of both disease genes and quantitative trait loci at CGM. Recentrly He is working on a newvisualization technique for haplotypes of multiallelic loci, which was applied to multiple HLA loci in the comparative study of Ulcerative colitis and Crohnfs disease.