Pooh Ritsuko Kimata MD, PhD, LL.B, MSc

Dr. Ritsuko Kimata Pooh graduated from the Law Department of Keio University, Tokyo, and thereafter graduated from Medical School of Tokushima University with social, legal, and ethical viewpoints. After getting M.D. in 1990, she has dedicated her most of time to clinical research and investigation in fetal medicine and perinatology. Especially, she has introduced the most sophisticated fetal neuroimaging from 1996 by using transvaginal sonography, three dimensional ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging. Her sonogram of fetal brain morphology and vascularity is really scientific as well as artistic. Especially her recent study of medullary vein development is worthy of note, and in 2011 she received the Alfred Alfred Kratochwil Award in ISUOG congress. Her remarkable activities on fetal brain have been internationally approved by perinatologists as well as neurologists and neurosurgeons. She published more than 70 original scientific papers 150 review articles and the books ; An Atlas of Fetal Central Nervous System, Diagnosis and Management in 2003, Fetal Neurology in 2009, Atlas of Advanced Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology in 2015.

Her early detection of fetal abnormalities in ‘Sonoembryology’ is really art of science in the uterus. Furthermore, she has been establishing a new field of Sonogenetics, combining detailed sonogram with cytogenetics and molecular genetics from 2009 and performing quite a number of invasive genetic procedures including more than 1,500s CVS and 300 amniocenteses per year. In the era of prenatal diagnoses with advanced molecular genetics and maternal serum with cfDNA, she has emphasized ‘fetus first!’ as a sonogenetical motto. She established the clinical genetic laboratory (Ritz Medical Clinical Lab.) in Osaka with the aim of ultimate sonogenetics. She has been truly one of the international executives in research as well as education in a field of perinatology. Her lectures are easily comprehensive for experts as well as beginners with beautiful slides and fluent English.