Prof. Ritsuko Kimata Pooh was born in Osaka, Japan in 1960. She graduated from Law Department of Keio University, Tokyo, and thereafter graduated from the Medical School of Tokushima University with social, legal and ethical viewpoints. After her graduation from medical school in 1990, she has dedicated most of her time to clinical research and investigation in fetal medicine and perinatology. She has especially introduced the most sophisticated fetal neuroimaging from 1996 by using transvaginal sonography, three dimensional ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging. She established CRIFM clinical research institute of fetal medicine in Osaka in 2007. Her recent study of medullary vein development and neuronal migration disorder of fetal brain are worthy of note, and she received the Alfred Alfred Kratochwil Award at the ISUOG Congress in 2011, Lifetime achievement award in WCPM (World Congress in Perinatal Medicine) in 2015, and Sir William Liley medal in International Congress on Fetus as a Patient in 2016. Her remarkable research on fetal brain has 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’ can be described as 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 the importance of observing fetuses by ultrasound. She established the clinical genetic laboratory (Ritz Medical Clinical Lab.) in Osaka with the aim of ultimate sonogenetics in 2011. She has truly been one of the international executives in research as well as education in a field of perinatology.
Notable publications:
Ritsuko K. Pooh, Kohei Shiota, Asim Kurjak. Imaging of the human embryo with magnetic resonance imaging microscopy and high-resolution transvaginal 3-dimensional sonography: human embryology in the 21st century. AJOG. 2011;204(1):77-9
POOH RK. Sonoembryology by 3D HDlive silhouette ultrasound - what is added by the "see-through fashion"? Journal of Perinatal Medicine. Mar 2016; 44(2): 139-48.
Country: Japan
Field: Obstetrics
Specialties: Fetal anomaly screening 1st trimester and 2nd trimester, aneuploidy screening, fetal anomalies screening, fetal anomalies, 3D/4D ultrasound, early pregnancy, genetics, fetal brain (fetal neurology)
Languages: Japanese, English