Kazuhiro Yasufuku is an internationally known Thoracic Surgeon with specific expertise in minimal invasive thoracic surgery and minimal invasive diagnostic procedures. He is currently Assistant Professor of Surgery at the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University. Dr Yasufuku has an international background. Born in Hyogo, Japan, he moved to California with his parents where he spent most of his youth. He went back to Japan and graduated from Chiba University School of Medicine in 1992. He pursued his General Surgery Training and Thoracic Surgery Training at Chiba University. He has been a staff surgeon at Chiba University since 2003. He also has special interest in Lung transplant. After two years of research fellowship at Indiana University in 1999, he went to the Toronto General Hospital for a Lung Transplant Clinical Fellowship in 2006.

Over the years, Dr Yasufuku has been a leader in the field of endobronchial Ultrasound. He developed the Convex Probe Endobronchial Ultrasound in collaboration with Olympus and has successfully introduced the clinical application of EBUS-TBNA in pulmonary medicine. He has served as a member of the program committee for the American Thoracic Society and the Japanese Clinical Respiratory and Physiology Meeting. He is currently an active member of the Medical Insurance Committee for the Japanese Society for Respiratory Endoscopy and the Lung Cancer Classification Committee for the Japan Lung Cancer Society.

Dr Yasufuku has more than 50 peer reviewed publication and book chapters and is the author of a chapter in Up-To-Date in Pulmonary Medicine. He is the author of a Manual of EBUS-TBNA (EBUS-TBNA at a glance). He has lectured throughout the world on a variety of topics related to minimal invasive thoracic surgery and interventional pulmonology.