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Sato Lab
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The lab aims to comprehensively understand the relationship between viruses and their hosts, using evolutionary and data analysis approaches as well.
AboutAbout the lab
Understanding viruses as a system
The Systems Virology lab studies the relationship between viruses and the hosts they infect.
Centered on experimental virology, the lab combines approaches such as bioinformatics, molecular evolution, and mathematical science.
The lab regards each virus as a single "system" (an integrated whole) and aims to understand it from a variety of perspectives.
The lab leads "G2P-Japan," a research consortium that investigates the properties of SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Key terms
- Bioinformatics
- A research approach that uses computers to analyze large amounts of biological data, such as genes
- Multi-omics
- An analysis that comprehensively measures and combines the molecules inside cells, such as gene activity, the genome, and the epigenome
- Variant
- A virus whose properties differ from those of the original virus because of genetic changes
ResearchResearch themes
The lab approaches the relationship between viruses and their hosts from three perspectives: coexistence and antagonism, the evolutionary timeline from the past to the future, and molecular mechanisms versus epidemic spread and transmission. It aims to understand these relationships in a multifaceted and comprehensive way.
*Illustrative imageInvestigating the properties of SARS-CoV-2 variants
To confront the SARS-CoV-2 variants that keep emerging, the lab took the lead in launching the research consortium "G2P-Japan" together with early-career researchers across Japan. The consortium aims to quickly clarify the properties of new variants and return its findings to society.
*Illustrative imageThe evolutionary history of viruses and their hosts
The lab deciphers the scenario of the "evolutionary arms race" between viruses and their hosts. It recreates in the laboratory the evolutionary events that took place between the ancestral viruses of HIV-1 and others and their mammalian hosts, and uses this to clarify what happened.
*Illustrative imageExploring differences in disease with omics
The lab asks why different viruses cause disease in different ways. Using "humanized mice" that can be infected with human viruses, together with multi-omics analysis, it works to elucidate the mechanisms by which viral infection leads to disease.
MembersFaculty
The lab's members include faculty, project researchers, international research fellows, doctoral and master's students, research students, research trainees, academic specialists, administrative assistants, technical assistants, and part-time workers.As of 2026
- ProfessorKei SatoPublications ↗
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Greater horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum) Hrdovicka” Charles J. Sharp / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Investigating the properties of SARS-CoV-2 variants: “SARS-CoV-2 Post-Omicron radial distance tree” Nextstrain / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- The evolutionary history of viruses and their hosts: “HIV-budding-Color” Photo Credit: C. Goldsmith Content Providers: CDC/ C. Goldsmith, P. Feorino, E. L. Palmer, W. R. McManus / Public domain (cropped)
- Exploring differences in disease with omics: “Single Cell RNA Seq (NIH BioArt 767)” NIAID (Ryan Kissinger) / Public domain (cropped)
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