Shizuo Akira

Shizuo Akira (Japanese审 良 静 男, Shizuo Akira, born January 27, 1953 in HigashiOsaka, Osaka Prefecture) is a Japanese immunologist. He is a professor at the University of Osaka, who has made groundbreaking discoveries in immunology field.

Akira is the recipient of several international awards, including the Robert Koch Prize, the price of Milstein, the William B. Coley Award, the Keio Medical Science Prize and the Canada Gairdner International Award ( 2011). Since 2009 he is member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.

Life

Akira acquired in 1977 an M.D.. postdoctoral he worked at Osaka University in 1984 and a Ph.D. in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California, Berkeley with Hitoshi Sakano. From 1987 to 1995 he was a researcher in the laboratory of Tadamitsu Kishimoto at Osaka University. In 1996 he became a professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the Hyogo College of Medicine. Since 2007 he is Director of the WPI Immunology Frontier Research Center, Osaka University.

Work

Akira explored in particular the mechanisms of innate immunity. At the investigation of inflammatory reactions with knockout mice he could explore the role of Toll -like receptors (Toll - like receptor, TLR) in innate immune system. They react to certain constant antigens of microbes that belong to the Pattern Recognition Receptors (PRR ) and activate immediately at the first barrier of the immune system in the skin and intestinal cells of the immune system against the microbe. He also identified other molecules of the innate immune system, such as the RNA helicases RIG -1 and MDA -5, and explored the associated signal system.