Kotaro Nakanishi is a co-founder of and serves as a scientific advisor to City Therapeutics. He is a professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at The Ohio State University. His research integrates structural biology and biochemistry to unravel the mechanisms of ribonucleoprotein complexes. Dr. Nakanishi has determined the crystal and cryo-EM structures of various ribonucleoprotein complexes, including methionine tRNA synthetase, tRNA modification enzymes and both yeast and human Argonaute proteins. 

His work has been recognized with multiple awards, including the RNA Society/Scaringe Award in 2012, the Young Scientist’s Prize from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in 2013, and the Early Career Innovator of the Year award in 2023. 

Dr. Nakanishi earned a Ph.D. from the School of Life Science and Technology at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He was a research fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center from 2008 to 2013, supported by both an HSFP Long-term Fellowship and a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship for Research Abroad.