Yoshinobu Sato was named a MICCAI Society Fellow in 2023 for his pioneering work in Computational Anatomy and Computer Assisted Intervention and his exceptional contributions to the MICCAI Society. He is credited as being “one of the pioneers in orthopaedic surgery navigation” and has published many papers on this topic.

Professor Sato has made significant contributions to the MICCAI Society and the MICCAI community since the early 90’s having presented his research at pre-MICCAI conference series (eg CVRMed).  He has played many important roles in the organization of MICCAI events including program committee, tutorial chair and program chair. His leadership as Program Chair brought enormous success to MICCAI 2013 in Nagoya Japan. 

He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Information and Computer Sciences from Osaka University in 1982, 1984 and 1988, respectively. He joined Osaka University Medical School in 1992 and in 1996, he was a Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In 1999, he returned to Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine as an Associate Professor. Since 2014, he is a Professor at the Division of Information Science, Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) in Japan.

We are very proud to call Dr. Yoshinobu Sato a MICCAI Fellow and pleased that he could share more about his research and his experiences with the MICCAI Society below.

Q. In the 2023 announcement introducing you as a MICCAI Fellow, you were described as “one of the pioneers in orthopaedic surgery navigation”. Can you tell us about how your research evolved and how do you think it will change in the future?

A. In 1992, I started research on medical applications of image processing at Osaka University Medical School, first working on some projects proposed by the medical side. At that time, image processing was a “nice to have” technology, not an “indispensable” technology for advanced medical care. To break through this situation, in 1995 I decided to begin research on surgical navigation with a young orthopedic surgeon (Dr. Nishii) as we discussed a new project on imaging technology that would be essential and highly promising for the future of medicine. Soon after, we were able to collaborate with a competent orthopedic surgeon (Dr. Sugano), and in 1998, we were able to put the CT-based surgical navigation system into clinical operation. 25 years of clinical operation has led us to the current research on musculoskeletal image analysis (including muscle segmentation from CT/MRI and musculoskeletal prediction from x-ray image) and its clinical applications (including automated surgical planning) by building a large database of patient images and clinical data.

In the next couple of years, we would like to conduct joint research not only with orthopedic surgeons but also with biomechanical researchers, physical therapists, and researchers in many fields related to the musculoskeletal system to analyze the human body's locomotor system, which is responsible for walking and swallowing functions, elucidate disease mechanisms, and lead to new diagnosis and treatment methods.

Q. What part of your work do you enjoy the most?

A. I am currently working primarily on medical imaging analysis of the musculoskeletal system. What I enjoy most is collaborating with academic, clinical, and industrial teams from various disciplines to solve social problems and create new scientific research.

Q. Your association with the MICCAI Society has been extensive – even before the MICCAI Society was established.  How has this benefitted you and your work?

A. MICCAI is the one and only conference that brings together the top researchers in the world of medical imaging and surgical support. Aiming acceptance of our papers for MICCAI presentation was a strong motivation for my research. My paper about orthopedic surgical navigation was presented at MICCAI 2000. In MICCAI 2007, my colleague, Dr. Nakamoto received the second-best paper award for our paper about laparoscopic surgical assistance in collaboration with Prof. Hashizume (abdominal surgeon). The international conferences CVRMed’95 and CVRMed-MRCAS7’97, which were the predecessor of MICCAI, were in its infancy and was a particularly stimulating gathering of highly motivated researchers. I presented my papers at these two conferences. My paper about 3D vessel enhancement filtering at CVRMed-MRCAS7’97 has become my representative work.

It was also a strong motivation for the young researchers who belonged to the same laboratory to pursue research with a high level of contribution in both medicine and technology. Even now, MICCAI remains the most stimulating international conference for me as well as my colleagues.

Q. You have been a key member of conference organizing committees for MICCAI - specifically MICCAI 2002 in Toyko, Japan and MICCAI 2013 in Nagoya, Japan.  What was the most challenging and rewarding parts of organizing a MICCAI conference?

A. I served as Tutorial Chair for MICCAI 2002 and Program Chair for MICCAI 2013. First of all, I would like to thank Prof. Dohi and Prof. Mori, the conference chairs, for giving me these roles. In particular, the Program Chair role was very rewarding with the great help of the co-chairs, Prof. Navab and the late Prof. Barillot. It was a great honor to serve in this role.