Prior to founding Acucela in 2002, Dr. Kubota worked in the ophthalmology field, including serving as a faculty member at Keio University and at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Dr. Kubota holds an MD and a PhD in medicine from Keio University. There, he discovered the glaucoma gene, myocilin, a discovery that earned him the Suda Award for his contribution to the field of neurodegenerative retinal disease. He was board certified in ophthalmology by the Japanese Ophthalmological Society in 1996 and is a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, the Japanese Ophthalmology Society, Keio Medical Society, the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, and the America-Japan Society, Inc. Since 2008, Dr. Kubota has been a director of the Japan-America Society of the State of Washington. He was appointed as Foresight Advisory Group Member, Department of Pharmacology, Case Western Reserve University in 2012. In 2014, Dr. Kubota was appointed to the National Bureau of Asian Research Board of Directors, and a visiting professor at School of Medicine, Keio University. Since 2015, he has been an Advisory member for The Japanese Association of Medical University Network of Technology Transfer.

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