Dr. Masaaki Ito is the Deputy Director and Head of Department of Colorectal Surgery as well as the head of Division of Surgical Technology at the Next Medical Device Innovation Center of the National Cancer Center Hospital East in Chiba, Japan. He received his MD from the Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University in 1993 and PhD from Chiba University in 2001. He is widely recognized as one of the foremost surgeons who are highly skilled in intersphincteric resection for rectal cancer. Today, he is also engaged in the development of innovative surgical instruments and operative procedures with notable surgeons and engineering technologists all over the world.