Nobel Prize 2010-Press Conference KVA-DSC 8021

Since 1949, there have been 29 Japanese laureates of the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

. The Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

, Chemistry,

Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, according ...

Literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

, and

Peace Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...

in 1901. An associated prize, thus far, the

Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...

, also sometimes known as the Nobel Prize in Economics, has yet to be awarded to a Japanese national. The Nobel Prizes in the above specific sciences disciplines and the Prize in Economics, which is commonly identified with them, are widely regarded as the most prestigious award one can receive in those fields. Of Japanese winners, twelve have been physicists, eight chemists, three for literature, five for physiology or medicine, and one for efforts towards peace. In the 21st century, in the field of natural science, the number of Japanese winners of the Nobel Prize has been second behind the U.S.

Summary

Laureates

;Japanese citizens The following are the Nobel laureates who were Japanese citizens at the time they were awarded the Nobel Prize. ;Laureates of Japanese birth and origin who were erstwhile Japanese citizens The following are Nobel laureates of Japanese birth and origin but subsequently acquired foreign citizenship; however, they are still often included in lists of Japanese Nobel laureates.

Notes

The 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Charles J. Pedersen has a Japanese mother and his

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

first name First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

was . Born in

Busan Busan (), officially known as is South Korea's most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.4 million inhabitants. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, ...

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

, Japanese protectorate, he moved to Japan with his family at the age of 8 years to attend a convent school in

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole Nanban trade, port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hi ...

. When he was 10 years old, he moved to

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...

and entered an

international school An international school is an institution that promotes education in an international environment or framework. Although there is no uniform definition or criteria, international schools are usually characterized by a multinational student body an ...

, called Saint Joseph College in Yamate, Naka-ku. The 2003

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

winner

Anthony James Leggett Sir Anthony James Leggett (born 26 March 1938) is a British-American theoretical physicist and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Leggett is widely recognised as a world leader in the theory of low-temperatu ...

spent a year in the group of Professor Takeo Matsubara at Kyoto University in the 1960s, he can speak fluently in Japanese and English. His wife is Haruko Kinase, a Japanese researcher. After the

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (abbreviated to ICAN, pronounced ) is a global civil society coalition working to promote adherence to and full implementation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The camp ...

(ICAN) received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize,

Setsuko Thurlow , born , is a Japanese–Canadian nuclear disarmament campaigner and Hibakusha who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. She is mostly known throughout the world for being a leading figure of the International Campaign to Abo ...

, a survivor of Atomic bombings of Hiroshima, attended the Nobel Prize award ceremony, received the Nobel Medal, Nobel Diploma and delivered speeches (Nobel Lecture) on December 2017.

Nominations

;Physics :

Shoichi Sakata was a Japanese physicist and Marxist who was internationally known for theoretical work on the subatomic particles.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Sakata Shōichi''" in ; n.b., Louis-Frédéric is pseudonym of Louis-Frédéric Nussbaum, '' ...

reported the "Sakata model" - a model of

hadrons In particle physics, a hadron (; grc, ἁδρός, hadrós; "stout, thick") is a composite subatomic particle made of two or more quarks held together by the strong interaction. They are analogous to molecules that are held together by the ele ...

in 1956, that inspired

Murray Gell-Mann Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. He was the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Theoretical ...

and

George Zweig George Zweig (; born May 30, 1937) is a Russian-American physicist. He was trained as a particle physicist under Richard Feynman. He introduced, independently of Murray Gell-Mann, the quark model (although he named it "aces"). He later turned his ...

quark model In particle physics, the quark model is a classification scheme for hadrons in terms of their valence quarks—the quarks and antiquarks which give rise to the quantum numbers of the hadrons. The quark model underlies "flavor SU(3)", or the Ei ...

. Moreover,

Kazuhiko Nishijima (4 October 1926 – 15 February 2009) was a Japanese physicist who made significant contributions to particle physics. He was professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University until his death in 2009. He was born in Tsuchiur ...

and Tadao Nakano originally given the

Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula The Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula (sometimes known as the NNG formula) relates the baryon number ''B'', the strangeness ''S'', the isospin ''I3'' of quarks and hadrons to the electric charge ''Q''. It was originally given by Kazuhiko Nishijima and ...

in 1953. However, 1969 physics prize was only awarded to Murray Gell-Mann. Afterward, Ivar Waller, the member of

Nobel Committee for Physics The Nobel Committee for Physics is the Nobel Committee responsible for proposing laureates for the Nobel Prize for Physics.

was sorry that Sakata had not received a physics prize. : Yoji Totsuka was leading the experiment that the first definitive evidence for neutrino oscillations was measured, via a high-statistics, high-precision measurement of the atmospheric neutrino flux. His Super-K group also confirmed, along with the

Sudbury Neutrino Observatory The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) was a neutrino observatory located 2100 m underground in Vale's Creighton Mine in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The detector was designed to detect solar neutrinos through their interactions with a large ...

(SNO), the solution to the solar neutrino problem. The Nobel Prize winning physicist

Masatoshi Koshiba was a Japanese physicist and one of the founders of neutrino astronomy. His work with the neutrino detectors Kamiokande and Super-Kamiokande was instrumental in detecting solar neutrinos, providing experimental evidence for the solar neutrino ...

was told that if Totsuka could extend his lifespan by eighteen months, he would receive the physics prize. ;Chemistry :

Eiji Osawa is a former professor of computational chemistry, noted for his prediction of the C60 molecule in 1970. Osawa received his Master's of Engineering in chemistry from Kyoto University's Department of Industrial Chemistry and then became an enginee ...

prediction of the C₆₀ molecule at

Hokkaido University , or , is a Japanese national university in Sapporo, Hokkaido. It was the fifth Imperial University in Japan, which were established to be the nation's finest institutions of higher education or research. Hokkaido University is considered ...

in 1970. He noticed that the structure of a corannulene molecule was a subset of an

Association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

shape, and he hypothesised that a full ball shape could also exist. Japanese scientific journals reported his idea, but it did not reach Europe or the Americas. Because of this, he was not awarded the 1996 chemistry prize. : Seiji Shinkai invented the first molecular machine in 1979, but he was not awarded the 2016 chemistry prize. On the contrary, Ben Feringa, one of the 2016 Nobel laureates, made a special trip to Japan in the 1980s to ask Shinkai for advice in the research. ;Physiology or Medicine :

Kitasato Shibasaburō Baron was a Japanese physician and bacteriologist. He is remembered as the co-discoverer of the infectious agent of bubonic plague in Hong Kong during an outbreak in 1894, almost simultaneously with Alexandre Yersin. Kitasato was nominate ...

and

Emil von Behring Emil von Behring (; Emil Adolf von Behring), born Emil Adolf Behring (15 March 1854 – 31 March 1917), was a German physiologist who received the 1901 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the first one awarded in that field, for his discovery ...

working together in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

in 1890 announced the discovery of

diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild clinical course, but in some outbreaks more than 10% of those diagnosed with the disease may die. Signs and s ...

antitoxin An antitoxin is an antibody with the ability to neutralize a specific toxin. Antitoxins are produced by certain animals, plants, and bacteria in response to toxin exposure. Although they are most effective in neutralizing toxins, they can also ...

serum; Von Behring was awarded the 1901 prize because of this work, but Kitasato was not. Meanwhile,

Hideyo Noguchi , also known as , was a prominent Japanese bacteriologist who in 1911 discovered the agent of syphilis as the cause of progressive paralytic disease. Early life Noguchi Hideyo whose childhood name was Seisaku Noguchi was born to a family of farm ...

and

Sahachiro Hata was a prominent Japanese bacteriologist who researched the bubonic plague under Kitasato Shibasaburō and assisted in developing the Arsphenamine drug in 1909 in the laboratory of Paul Ehrlich. Hata received three unsuccessful nominations for ...

, those who missed out on the early Nobel Prize for many times. : Katsusaburō Yamagiwa and his student Kōichi Ichikawa successfully induced squamous cell carcinoma by painting crude

coal tar Coal tar is a thick dark liquid which is a by-product of the production of coke and coal gas from coal. It is a type of creosote. It has both medical and industrial uses. Medicinally it is a topical medication applied to skin to treat psorias ...

on the inner surface of rabbits' ears. Yamagiwa's work has become the primary basis for research of cause of cancer. However, Johannes Fibiger was awarded the 1926 medicine prize because of his incorrect Spiroptera carcinoma theory, while the Yamagiwa group was snubbed by

Nobel Committee A Nobel Committee is a working body responsible for most of the work involved in selecting Nobel Prize laureates. There are five Nobel Committees, one for each Nobel Prize. Four of these committees (for prizes in physics, chemistry, physiolo ...

. In 1966, the former committee member

Folke Henschen Folke is a parish in the county of Dorset in southern England, situated in the Blackmore Vale, approximately south-east of Sherborne. The parish has an area of and is made of the villages of Folke and Alweston, and the hamlet of Bishops Down. ...

claimed "I was strongly advocate Dr. Yamagiwa deserve the Nobel Prize, but unfortunate it did not realize". In 2010, the

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

's guide to Nobel Prizes in cancer research mentions Yamagiwa's work as a milestone without mentioning Fibiger. : Umetaro Suzuki completed the first

vitamin A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules closely related chemically, i.e. vitamers) that is an essential micronutrient that an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its metabolism. Essential nutrie ...

complex was isolated in 1910. When the article was translated into German, the translation failed to state that it was a newly discovered nutrient, a claim made in the original Japanese article, and hence his discovery failed to gain publicity. Because of this, he was not awarded the 1929 medicine prize. :Satoshi Mizutani and

Howard Martin Temin Howard Martin Temin (December 10, 1934 – February 9, 1994) was an American geneticist and virologist. He discovered reverse transcriptase in the 1970s at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, for which he shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Phys ...

jointly discovered that the Rous sarcoma virus particle contained the

enzyme Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecules known as products ...

reverse transcriptase, and Mizutani was solely responsible for the original conception and design of the novel experiment that confirmed Temin's '' provirus hypothesis''. Horace Freeland Judson, ''The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science'', 1st. Ed., 2004. However, Mizutani was not awarded the 1975 medicine prize along with Temin. :As of 2015, there have been seven Japanese who have received the

Lasker Award The Lasker Awards have been awarded annually since 1945 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science or who have performed public service on behalf of medicine. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation, which was ...

and twelve Japanese who have received the

Canada Gairdner International Award The Canada Gairdner International Award is given annually by the Gairdner Foundation at a special dinner to five individuals for outstanding discoveries or contributions to medical science. Receipt of the Gairdner is traditionally considered a p ...

, but only three Japanese who have received the

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...

. ;Others :A number of important Japanese native scientists were not nominated for early Nobel Prizes, such as Yasuhiko Kojima and Yasuichi Nagano (jointly discovered Interferon), Jōkichi Takamine (first isolated epinephrine), Kiyoshi Shiga (discovered '' Shigella dysenteriae''), Tomisaku Kawasaki (

Kawasaki disease Kawasaki disease is a syndrome of unknown cause that results in a fever and mainly affects children under 5 years of age. It is a form of vasculitis, where blood vessels become inflamed throughout the body. The fever typically lasts for more th ...

is named after him), and

Hakaru Hashimoto was a Japanese doctor and medical scientist of the Meiji and Taishō periods. He is best known for publishing the first description of the disease that was later named Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Biography Hashimoto was born on 5 May 1881, in th ...

. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Reiji Okazaki was a pioneer Japanese molecular biologist, known for his research on DNA replication and especially for describing the role of Okazaki fragments along with his wife Tsuneko. Okazaki was born in Hiroshima, Japan. He graduated in 1953 from Nagoya ...

and his wife Tsuneko were known for describing the role of

Okazaki fragments Okazaki fragments are short sequences of DNA nucleotides (approximately 150 to 200 base pairs long in eukaryotes) which are synthesized discontinuously and later linked together by the enzyme DNA ligase to create the lagging strand during DNA ...

, but he died of

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...

(sequelae of the

atomic bombing of Hiroshima The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...

) in 1975 at the age of 44. : Masahiko Aoki, seen as the most likely candidate to become the first Japanese to win the Nobel Prize for economics, for developing the Institutional Comparative Analysis, he taught at Kyoto University and Stanford University. Unfortunately, he died in Palo Alto, California, in July, 2015. He was 77.

References

External links