Dr. Wataru Sugiura is Director General of the Center for Clinical Sciences at Japan Society for Health Security (JIHS) and serves as President of the Japanese Society for AIDS Research. He earned his MD and PhD from Hamamatsu University and trained in internal and pulmonary medicine before pursuing advanced HIV research as a visiting associate at NIAID/NIH.
Dr. Sugiura led HIV drug resistance research at Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases, establishing a nationwide genotyping surveillance system and contributing to the development of diagnostic tools. He later directed infectious disease programs at Nagoya Medical Center and held senior medical affairs positions at GlaxoSmithKline, ViiV Healthcare, and bioMérieux Japan, where he worked on HIV therapies, SLE treatments, and molecular diagnostics.
Since 2020, Dr. Sugiura has overseen JIHS’s clinical research infrastructure, supporting vaccine and antiviral studies, including those for COVID-19. He promotes innovation in clinical research through platform trials and decentralized models, and actively builds international study networks.
A respected researcher and editor for several scientific journals, Dr. Sugiura has received multiple honors, including the Academy Prize from the Japanese Society for AIDS Research, in recognition of his contributions to infectious disease science
