Susumu Tonegawa

Susumu Tonegawa (利 根 川 进Tonegawa Japanese Susumu, born September 6, 1939 in Nagoya ) is a Japanese molecular biologist and immunologist.

He received the 1981 Asahi Prize and the Avery - Landsteiner Prize, in 1982 the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, 1983, the Gairdner Foundation International Award, the 1986 Robert Koch Prize and in 1987 both the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research as well as the Nobel Prize for Medicine for the discovery of the genetic basis for the emergence of wealth variation of the antibodies.

Life

Tonegawa was born in 1939 as the son of an engineer of a textile factory. He is the second of three sons and has a younger sister. For professional reasons, Tonegawa father had to regularly move from one production site of his employer to the next. Tonegawa thus increased in several small towns on in rural areas. As he grew older, his parents sent him to Tokyo to an uncle, so that he can take advantage of the better educational opportunities of the big city. Tonegawa attended the prestigious Hibiya School, where he developed an interest in chemistry. After leaving school he therefore took part in the entrance examination for the Faculty of Chemistry of Kyoto University. After he had failed on the first attempt, he got in 1959 a study place.

After graduating Tonegawa received a PhD position at the Institute for Virus Research, University of Kobe, but after only two months advised him to go because of better teaching programs in the United States be providing care professor. The Graduate School of the Faculty of Biology of the University of California at San Diego took him and 1968 Tonegawa was awarded the Ph.D. He then remained until 1969 at the laboratory of Professor Hayashi as a postdoctoral fellow and then went to the laboratory of Renato Dulbecco at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Since the expiration of his visa decency, he took the opportunity to switch to the Basel Institute for Immunology, true and remained there from 1971 to 1981. He accepted a professorship at MIT, where he taught until today.

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