Tasuku Honjo

Tasuku Honjo
本庶 佑
Honjo in 2013
Born (1942-01-27) 27 January 1942 (age 82)
Kyoto, Japan
NationalityJapanese[1]
EducationKyoto University (BS, MD, PhD)
Known for
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsMolecular Immunology
InstitutionsKyoto University
Doctoral advisor
Notable studentsShizuo Akira

Tasuku Honjo (本庶 佑, Honjo Tasuku, born January 27, 1942)[2] is a Japanese physician-scientist and immunologist. He won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and is best known for his identification of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1).[3] He is also known for his molecular identification of cytokines: IL-4 and IL-5,[4] as well as the discovery of activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) that is essential for class switch recombination and somatic hypermutation.[5]

He was elected as a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (2001), as a member of German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina (2003), and also as a member of the Japan Academy (2005).

In 2018, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with James P. Allison.[6] He and Allison together had won the 2014 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science for the same achievement.[7]

  1. ^ "Tasuku Honjo | Biography & PD-1 | Britannica".
  2. ^ "Tasuku Honjo – Facts – 2018". NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB. 1 October 2018. Retrieved 5 October 2018.
  3. ^ Yasumasa Ishida; Yasutoshi Agata; Keiichi Shibahara; Tasuku Honjo (November 1992). "Induced expression of PD-1, a novel member of the immunoglobulin gene superfamily, upon programmed cell death". The EMBO Journal. 11 (11): 3887–3895. doi:10.1002/J.1460-2075.1992.TB05481.X. ISSN 0261-4189. PMC 556898. PMID 1396582. Wikidata Q24293504.
  4. ^ Atsushi Kumanogoh; Masato Ogata (25 March 2010). "The study of cytokines by Japanese researchers: a historical perspective". International Immunology. 22 (5): 341–345. doi:10.1093/INTIMM/DXQ022. ISSN 0953-8178. PMID 20338911. Wikidata Q34106729.
  5. ^ "Robert Koch Stiftung – Christine Goffinet". www.robert-koch-stiftung.de.
  6. ^ Hannah, Devlin (October 2018). "James P Allison and Tasuku Honjo win Nobel prize for medicine". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  7. ^ "2014 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science". Archived from the original on 2017-10-20. Retrieved 2016-06-18.