Background
Nishizuka was born in 1932 at Ashiya-city in Japan.
西塚 泰美
biochemist biologist physician university professor
Nishizuka was born in 1932 at Ashiya-city in Japan.
Then, he completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Kyoto University under the supervision of Osamu Hayaishi in 1962.
He obtained his Doctor of Medicine from the Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University, in 1957. After completing his studies in Japan, he spent one year as a postdoctoral fellow in Fritz Lipmann"s laboratory at the Rockefeller University. From 1962 to 1964, Nishizuka was the Associate at Department of Medical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University.
From 1964 to 1968, he was an Associate Professor at the Department of Medical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University.
From 1969 to 2004, he was the professor and chairman of the Department of Biochemistry, Kobe University School of Medicine. He also served as the president of Kobe University.
Nishizuka is known for the construction of the fundamental concepts of the intracellular signal transduction cascade through his discovery of protein kinase C, also known as C kinase, and his analysis of its function, which revealed a new intracellular signal transduction system and elucidated the regulatory mechanisms involved in many biological phenomena, including cancer cell growth.
Nishizuka received several awards and honors in his life. The major awards received by him are the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Award and the Wolf Prize in Medicine. He won the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Award in 1989 for "his profound contributions to the understanding of signal transduction in cells, and for his discovery that carcinogens trigger cell growth by activating protein kinase C". He won the Wolf Prize in Medicine along with Michael J. Berridge of the University of Cambridge for "their discoveries concerning cellular transmembrane signalling involving phospholipids and calcium". The other major awards and honors received by Nishizuka are: The Asahi Prize (1985) The Gairdner Foundation International Award (1988) The Alfred P. Sloan, Junior. Prize (1988) The Kyoto Prize (1992) The Ernst Schering Prize (1995).
Royal Society; German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Japan Academy; French Academy of Sciences. National Academy of Sciences.
