Michinari Hamaguchi earned his PhD in medicine from Nagoya University. He was appointed Research Associate at the Nagoya University School of Medicine in 1980, and since then, he had been working at Nagoya University, except for the time he pursued his research at the Rockefeller University in the U.S. from 1985-1988. 

He served as the President of Nagoya University from Apr. 2009 – Mar. 2015 before becoming the President of JST in Oct. 2015.

His scholarly interest is Pathological Medical Chemistry. He currently serves as Chairperson of the Council for Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in Japan.