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Tomoko was born and raised in Kyoto. She is an otolaryngologist, and became interested in advanced research on the inner ear when she was a graduate student in the Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University. She is particularly fascinated with the well-ordered and beautiful organ for hearing: the cochlea in mammals. She is currently trying to understand the regulation of sensory epithelium development in mammalian cochleae, and believes it has both scientific and clinical importance. This is because the cochlear sensory epithelium sensitively exhibits the disorders caused by disturbance of cellular differentiation and tissue organization. Ultimately, better knowledge of how the mechanosensory hair cells in the cochlear sensory epithelium develop may form the basis for auditory hair cell regeneration.