He researches into adult stem cells. He is director of Center for iPS Cell Research and Application and a professor at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyoto University. He is also a senior investigator at the UCSF-affiliated J. David Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, California; and a professor of anatomy at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Yamanaka is also the current president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR).