Susumu Tonegawa
Japanese biologist, neuroscientist (1939–2026)
Susumu Tonegawa (利根川 進, Tonegawa Susumu; September 5, 1939 – July 11, 2026) was a Japanese scientist who was the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987 for his discovery of V(D)J recombination, the genetic mechanism which produces antibody diversity. Although he won the Nobel Prize for his work in immunology, Tonegawa was a molecular biologist by training and, following his Nobel Prize win, changed fields to neuroscience, examining the molecular, cellular and neuronal basis of memory formation and retrieval.
Early life and education
Tonegawa was born in Nagoya, Japan, and attended Hibiya High School in Tokyo. While a student at Kyoto University, Tonegawa became fascinated with operon theory after reading papers by François Jacob and Jacques Monod, whom he credits in part with inspiring his interest in molecular biology. Tonegawa graduated from Kyoto University in 1963 and, due to limited options for molecular biology study in Japan at the time, moved to the University of California, San Diego, to do his doctorate study under Dr. Masaki Hayashi. He received his Ph.D. in 1968.
Career
Tonegawa conducted post-doctoral work at the Salk Institute in San Diego in the laboratory of Renato Dulbecco. With encouragement from Dr. Dulbecco, Tonegawa moved to the Basel Institute for Immunology in Basel, Switzerland, in 1971, where he transitioned from molecular biology into immunology studies and carried out his landmark immunology studies.
The public source identifies “Susumu Tonegawa” as japanese biologist, neuroscientist (1939–2026). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Susumu, Tonegawa and Japanese.
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This entry incorporates text from “Susumu Tonegawa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.