Tasuku Honjo
Tasuku Honjo (Japanese本 庶 佑, Tasuku Honjo, born January 27, 1942 in Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture) is a Japanese immunologist, who is known for research on the molecular causes of antibody diversity.
Life
Honjo studied medicine in 1960 at Kyoto University, where he both his medical doctorate (MD, 1966) earned his Ph.D. and in Medicinal Chemistry ( 1975). In between, he completed 1966/67, a specialist training at the University Hospital in Kyoto and was from 1971 to 1973 at the National Institutes of Health and a Fellow of the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC From 1974 he was assistant professor at the Medical Faculty of the University of Tokyo in 1979 and Professor of Genetics at the Medical Faculty of the University of Osaka. He is at Kyoto University, since 2005 in the Department of Immunology and Genomic Medicine Professor since 1984. In Kyoto, he was from 1988 to 1997 director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics from 1996 to 2000 and from 2002 to 2004 Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. From 2004 to 2006 he was director of the Research Center for Science Systems of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
Work
Generating within the large number of antibodies B- lymphocytes, each specifically in response to certain antigens and before birth by random recombination of genes for sub- sections of the V region is generated ( refer to V ( D) J recombination) is after birth a genetic maturation instead that better equips the immune system to fight. Primarily two mechanisms act: somatic hypermutation ( point mutations of the DNA for the highly variable V region of the antibody) and class switching recombination in the C- region ( the constant region of the heavy chain of the antibody) which leads to the various subtypes, such as IgG, IgE, IgA. Honjo succeeded in elucidating the underlying mechanisms and the discovery of an enzyme involved therein, AID ( Activation -Induced Cytidine Deaminase ). Suggested a role of the AID in the nachtranskriptionalen RNA processing, which then is added as a further mechanism also.
Honjo also discovered a mechanism of the immune system, which has a damping effect on the immune response through the PD- 1 protein. This provides an approach to cancer therapy, since blockade of the PD -1 receptor, the immune system is highly activated. Here clinical trials are already (to skin cancer and large cell lung cancer) in Japan ( Ono Pharmaceuticals) and Bristol- Myers Squibb in the U.S. work in progress ( 2012).
Rates and Memberships
In 1981 Honjo the Asahi Prize, in 1984 the Osaka Science Prize and the Kihara Prize of the Japanese Genetic Society, 1985 Erwin - of - Baelz Prize, 1988 Takeda Medicine Award, the 1994 Uehara Prize and in 1992 the Behring - Kitasato prize. In 2012 he was awarded the Robert Koch Prize. In 1996 he received the Imperial Prize and the Prize of the Japanese Academy of Sciences and in 2000 he was appointed by the Japanese government to the person with special cultural merits. He became a member of the National Academy of Sciences and in 2003 the Leopoldina in 2001. He is an honorary member of the American Association of Immunologists and was 1999-2000 President of the Japanese Society for Immunology.
1991 to 1996 he was Fogarty Scholar at the National Institutes of Health.