Dr. Masakatsu Numata is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the Gastroenterological Center, Yokohama City University Medical Center, Japan, specializing in lower gastrointestinal and colorectal surgery. He earned his MD from Yokohama City University in 2005 and his PhD from the same institution in 2013, training at several leading centers in Japan including Kanagawa Cancer Center and Shizuoka Cancer Center. A pioneer in robotic-assisted colorectal surgery in Japan, his work centers on standardizing autonomic nerve-preserving techniques in robotic rectal cancer surgery, with a particular focus on preserving sexual and anal (bowel) function. He has also published extensively on robotic surgery beyond total mesorectal excision (TME), including lateral lymph node dissection, and on functional outcomes after rectal cancer surgery, such as the multicenter LANDMARC study on male sexual dysfunction and studies on the prevalence and risk factors of Low Anterior Resection Syndrome (LARS).