Bibliography
Fumio Inagaki is a geomicrobiologist, Professor, and Vice Director of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) Advanced Institute for Marine Ecosystem Change (AIMEC), co-hosted by Tohoku University & Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)(2024.1-present). He is also Project Leader of the Ocean Basalt CCS Basic Research, SIP (Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program, the Cabinet Office of Japan), and Investigator and Principal Senior Scientist of the Drilling Projects Support Office, Institute for Marine-Earth Exploration and Engineering (MarE3), JAMSTEC. He is also appointed a Professor at the Graduate School of Science, Department of Earth Science, Tohoku University (2021.3-present), and a Guest Professor at Waseda University and Kochi University, Japan (2020.4-present).
He earned his Ph.D. at Kyushu University, Japan (2000), under the supervision of Prof. Seiya Ogata, in studying thermophilic microbial communities associated with silicate mineralization at geothermal power plants. Then, he joined as a researcher at the Deep-Sea Frontier Research Program of JAMSTEC under the supervision of Prof. Koki Horikoshi. His research interests are geomicrobiology and biogeochemistry of the ocean, with a particular focus on the deep subseafloor biosphere. He used scientific ocean drilling and state-of-the-art transdisciplinary approaches to explore the nature and limits of deep microbial life, ecosystem functionality in biogeochemical carbon cycles, co-evolution of life and Earth, and planetary habitability on Earth and beyond. He was a shipboard microbiologist of the first deep biosphere-dedicated scientific ocean drilling with the US drilling research vessel JOIDES Resolution, Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 201 at the eastern equatorial Pacific and off Peru in 2002. He first isolated two novel mesophilic chemolithoautotrophic epsilon-proteobacteria (Sulfrimonas autotrophica gen. nov., sp. nov. 2003, and Sulfurovum lithotrophicum gen. nov., sp. nov. 2004) from the Okinawa Trough hydrothermal fields, which isolates appeared later to be the abundant, ecologically significant sulfur and/or hydrogen-metabolizing bacteria globally distributed at cold seeps and deep-sea hydrothermal environments. He was a research fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Bo Barker Jørgensen (MPI-MM: 2005-2006). Returning to Japan, he served as the Deputy Director of Kochi Institute for Core Sample Research (KCC: 2015-2019), the Research and Development Center for Ocean Drilling Science (ODS: 2016-2019), and the Mantle Drilling Promotion Office (MDP: 2019-2023) in JAMSTEC.
As of today, he has participated in 28 scientific research cruises, in which he served as (co-)chief scientist for 15 expeditions, including 3 co-chief expeditions of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expeditions 329, 337, and International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 370. In 2012, during IODP Expedition 337 using the Japanese riser-drilling research vessel Chikyu, his international team extended the world depth record of previous scientific ocean drilling down to 2,466 meters below the ocean floor, revealing the occurrence of deepest subseafloor microbial communities in ~20-million-year-old coal and shale beds. His study includes the global abundance, biogeographical distribution, diversity, and metabolic activity of subseafloor microbial communities (Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukaryotes), adaptive mechanisms, long-term survival strategy, and limits of subseafloor life, geosphere-biosphere interactions at plate subduction zones, and planetary habitability that could only be achieved through scientific ocean drilling in the oceanic sediment, crust, and the upper mantle. Based on his knowledge and experience in geomicrobiology and scientific ocean drilling, he and his colleagues also explore sustainability science to accomplish a carbon-neutral society, including carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). Since 2023, he has led the Project Team for Ocean Basalt CCS Basic Research in the SIP Ocean Program (SIP: Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program, the Cabinet Office of the Japanese Government), for which JAMSTEC is an organization for the SIP-Ocean research promotion.
He published ~220 peer-reviewed international papers and book chapters and ~70 Japanese articles with over 200 media coverages. He served as an Editorial Board member of Applied and Environmental Microbiology (2005-2016), and a Senior Editor of The ISME Journal (2017-2019), both flagship journals in microbiology and microbial ecology. Since 2019, he is serving as an Associate Editor of Science Advances, AAAS. In 2015, he was the first awardee of the American Geophysical Union (AGU)-the Japanese Geoscience Union (JpGU) Asahiko Taira Scientific Ocean Drilling Research Prize (Taira Prize). His work and contribution to the scientific community were also recognized by the Cozzarelli Prize of the National Academy of Science in 2017 (Category IV), the Copernicus Medal 2019 at the European Geophysical Union (EGU), the Japan Association for Petroleum Technology (JAPT) Special Award in 2021, the Geochemistry Fellow of Geochemical Society (GS) and European Association of Geochemistry (EAG) in 2021, and the AGU Fellow in 2021. In June 2023, he was awarded the Philipp Franz von Siebold Prize by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany through the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. His international academic services also include a Deep Life steering committee member of the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO: 2013-2019), a steering committee member of the International Society of Subsurface Microbiology (ISSM, since 2017), the Program Committee Co-chair of the JpGU-AGU Joint Meeting 2020, and an Advisor of the Earth 4D: Subsurface Science & Exploration, CIFAR, Canada (since 2019-present).
