AsianScientist (Dec. 4, 2018) – Professor Shigekazu Nagata of Osaka University, Japan, has been elected president and chair of the board of trustees of the International Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Organization.
The HFSP is a platform to support innovative research in the life sciences, providing funding for collaborative, high risk research among countries. Having served as the Japanese representative on the HFSP’s Council of Scientists from 2006-2009, Nagata is no stranger to the program’s research grants, postdoctoral fellowship programs and career development initiatives.
Nagata is a biochemist recognized globally for his role in elucidating the physiological and pathological role of Fas-mediated apoptosis, a biological mechanism of programmed cell death. He obtained his PhD in 1977 from the University of Tokyo, Japan, and carried out postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Professor Charles Weissmann at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
In 1982, Nagata returned to the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Tokyo, where he took up the position of assistant professor. In April 1987, he was appointed head of the Molecular Biology Department at the Osaka Bioscience Institute before becoming a professor in the Department of Genetics at the Osaka University Medical School. He moved to the Graduate School of Medicine of Kyoto University as a professor in the Department of Medical Chemistry in 2007.
Throughout the course of his career, Nagata has received numerous international prizes, including the Emil von Behring Prize, the Robert Koch Award, the Prix Lacassagne, the Debrecen Award for Molecular Medicine, the Keio Medical Science Prize, the Asahi Prize, the Japan Academy Prize and and the Imperial Prize. The Japanese government recognized Nagata as a Person of Cultural Merit in 2001.
Professor Warwick Anderson, Secretary-General of HFSPO, noted that Nagata’s enthusiastic support for basic research and his vision will help guide HFSP into its fourth decade of operations.
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Source: Human Frontier Science Program; Photo: National Academy of Sciences, USA.
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