Susumu Tonegawa
Susumu Tonegawa | |
---|---|
Nagoya, Japan | |
Nationality | Japanese |
Alma mater | |
Known for | Antibody diversity E-box V(D)J recombination |
Awards |
|
Scientific career | |
Fields | Genetics, Immunology, Neuroscience |
Institutions | |
Academic advisors |
|
Website | tonegawalab |
Susumu Tonegawa (利根川 進, Tonegawa Susumu, born September 5, 1939) is a Japanese scientist who was the sole recipient of the
Early life and education
Tonegawa was born in
Career
Tonegawa conducted post-doctoral work at the
In 1981, Tonegawa became a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1994, he was appointed as the first Director of the MIT Center for Learning and Memory, which developed under his guidance into The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. Tonegawa resigned his directorship in 2006 and currently serves as a Picower Professor of Neuroscience and Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
Tonegawa also served as Director of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute from 2009 to 2017.
Research
Immunology
Tonegawa's Nobel Prize work elucidated the genetic mechanism of the adaptive
In 1983, Tonegawa also discovered a transcriptional enhancer element associated with antibody gene complex, the first cellular enhancer element.
Neuroscience
Shortly following his Nobel Prize in 1990, Tonegawa again changed fields from immunology to neuroscience, where he has focused his research in the ensuing years.
Tonegawa's lab pioneered introductory transgenic and gene-knockout technologies in mammalian systems. He was involved in early work demonstrating the importance of CaMKII- (1992) and the NMDA receptor-dependent synaptic plasticity (1996) in memory formation.
Tonegawa's lab discovered that dendritic neuronal spines in the temporal cortex are a likely target for treatment of Fragile X Syndrome. With one dosage of the inhibitor drug FRAX586, Tonegawa showed a marked reduction of FXS symptoms in the mouse model.[5]
Tonegawa was an early adopter of optogenetics and biotechnology in neuroscience research, leading to his groundbreaking work identifying and manipulating memory engram cells. In 2012, his lab demonstrated that the activation of a specific sub-population of mouse hippocampal neurons, labelled during a fear conditioning paradigm, is sufficient to evoke a behavioral response correlated with a precise memory trace. This demonstrated for the first time that memory information is stored in specific cellular ensembles in the hippocampus, now frequently called memory engram cells.[6]
More recently, his lab continues to employ optogenetic technology and virus injection techniques to expand their findings on the engram cell ensemble. Notably, Tonegawa has uncovered the role of memory engram cell ensembles in memory valence,[7] social memory, as well as their role in brain disorders such as depression,[8] amnesia,[9] and Alzheimer's disease. These works provide proofs of concept for future medical treatments in humans through the manipulation of memory engram ensembles.
Personal life
Tonegawa currently resides in the Boston area with his wife, Mayumi Yoshinari Tonegawa, who worked as an NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) director/interviewer and is now a freelance science writer. The Tonegawas have three children, Hidde Tonegawa, Hanna Tonegawa, and Satto Tonegawa (deceased).
Tonegawa is a fan of the Boston Red Sox, and threw out an opening pitch during their 2004 World Series championship season.
Selected awards and honors
- 1982 – Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
- 1983 – Gairdner Foundation International Award
- 1984 – Order of Culture (Bunkakunsho), Emperor of Japan
- 1984 – Foreign Associate, American Academy of Arts and Sciences of the United States[10]
- 1986 – Foreign Associate, National Academy of Sciences of the United States[11]
- 1986 – Robert Koch Prize
- 1987 – Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research
- 1987 – Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
- 1995 – honored on a stamp (Scott No. 1635c) issued by Gambia[12]
- 2004 – Honorary Degree, Kyoto University[13]
- 2006 – Member, American Association for the Advancement of Science
- 2007 – RIKENFellow
- 2009 – Honorary Degree, City University of Hong Kong[14]
- 2010 – David M. Bonner Lifetime Achievement Award, UCSD
Selected publications
- List of publications by Susumu Tonegawa
- Tonegawa, S. (1983). Somatic generation of antibody diversity. Nature, 302(5909), 575-581.
- Gillies, S. D., Morrison, S. L., Oi, V. T., & Tonegawa, S. (1983). A tissue-specific transcription enhancer element is located in the major intron of a rearranged immunoglobulin heavy chain gene. Cell, 33(3), 717-728.
- Mombaerts, P., Iacomini, J., Johnson, R. S., Herrup, K., Tonegawa, S., & Papaioannou, V. E. (1992). RAG-1-deficient mice have no mature B and T lymphocytes. Cell, 68(5), 869-877.
- Silva, A. J., Stevens, C. F., Tonegawa, S., & Wang, Y. (1992). Deficient hippocampal long-term potentiation in alpha-calcium-calmodulin kinase II mutant mice. Science, 257(5067), 201-206.
- Haas, W., Pereira, P., & Tonegawa, S. (1993). Gamma/delta cells. Annual review of immunology, 11(1), 637-685.
- Tsien, Joe Z.; Huerta, Patricio T.; Tonegawa, Susumu (1996). "The Essential Role of Hippocampal CA1 NMDA Receptor–Dependent Synaptic Plasticity in Spatial Memory". Cell. 87 (7): 1327–1338. S2CID 2730362.
- Poss, K. D., & Tonegawa, S. (1997). Reduced stress defense in heme oxygenase 1-deficient cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 94(20), 10925-10930.
- Shen, J., Bronson, R. T., Chen, D. F., Xia, W., Selkoe, D. J., & Tonegawa, S. (1997). Skeletal and CNS defects in Presenilin-1-deficient mice. Cell, 89(4), 629-639.
- Nakazawa, K., Quirk, M. C., Chitwood, R. A., Watanabe, M., Yeckel, M. F., Sun, L. D., Kato, A., Carr, C.A., Johnston, D., Wilson, M.A., & Tonegawa, S. (2002). Requirement for hippocampal CA3 NMDA receptors in associative memory recall. Science, 297(5579), 211-218.
- Liu, X., Ramirez, S., Pang, P. T., Puryear, C. B., Govindarajan, A., Deisseroth, K., & Tonegawa, S. (2012). Optogenetic stimulation of a hippocampal engram activates fear memory recall. Nature, 484(7394), 381-385.
- Ramirez, S., Liu, X., Lin, P. A., Suh, J., Pignatelli, M., Redondo, R. L., Ryan, T.J., & Tonegawa, S. (2013). Creating a false memory in the hippocampus. Science, 341(6144), 387-391.
See also
- Long-term potentiation
- List of Japanese Nobel laureates
- List of Nobel laureates affiliated with Kyoto University
References
- ^ "The MIT 150: 150 Ideas, Inventions, and Innovators that Helped Shape Our World". The Boston Globe. May 15, 2011. Retrieved August 8, 2011.
- ^ Autobiography on Nobel official website
- ^ Autobiography on Nobel official website
- ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1987".
- ^ "Researchers reverse Fragile X Syndrome symptoms in adult mice". 19 March 2013.
- PMID 22441246.
- PMID 25162525.
- PMID 26085274.
- PMID 26023136.
- ^ Recipients of American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow award | MIT Biology Archived 2016-03-26 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Recipients of National Academy of Sciences Member award | MIT Biology Archived 2017-01-07 at the Wayback Machine
- PMID 21282480.
- ^ 利根川 進様 京都大学名誉博士授与式典 式辞 (2004年4月12日) — 京都大学
- ^ Honorary Doctor of Science Professor Susumu TONEGAWA