Neu gewählte Mitglieder 2003 (pdf) - Leopoldina

Prof. M.D. Ph.D.
Tasuku Honjo
*January 27 th 1942 Kyoto (Japan)
Section: Microbiology and Immunology
Matricula number: 6893
Date of election: July 22, 2003
Tasuku HONJO was born in Kyoto (Japan) in 1942. He
graduated from Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine
in 1966 and further studied in the Medical Chemistry
Department (Chairman Professor Osamu HAYAISHI) of the graduate school of the
same institution. He spent four years in USA as a postdoctoral fellow in Department
of Embryology, Carnegie Institution of Washington (Baltimore), and Laboratory of
Molecular Genetics (P. LEDER) NICHD, NIH, where he initiated studies on immunoglobulin
genes. He returned to Tokyo University as an assistant professor in 1974. He
was appointed Professor at the Department of Genetics in Osaka University School
of Medicine in 1979 and then moved to the Department of Medical Chemistry, Kyoto
University Faculty of Medicine. He is an honorary member of American Association
of Immunologists. He was appointed visiting professor in NIH (Fogarty Scholar-inresidence)
and Harvard Medical School (USA).
His major contributions are in the field of immunoglobulins, cytokines, cytokine
receptors, and autoimmunity, especially molecular mechanism of class switch recombination.
HONJO has received many awards, including Imperial Prize, and Japan
Academy Prize (1996). Honored by the Japanese Government as a person of cultural
merits (2000). Elected as a foreign associate of National Academy of Sciences,
United States of America in 2001.
Publications (Selection):
– HONJO, T., and KATAOKA, T.: Organization of immunoglobulin heavy chain genes and allelic deletion
model. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 75, 2140 – 2144 (1978)
– NOMA, Y., SIDERAS, P., NAITO, T., BERGSTEDT-LINDQUIST, S., AZUMA, C., SEVERINSON, E., TANABE, T.,
KINASHI, T., MATSUDA, F., YAOITA, Y., and HONJO, T.: Cloning of cDNA encoding the murine IgG1
induction factor by a novel strategy using SP6 promoter. Nature 319, 640 – 646 (1986)
– MURAMATSU, M., KINOSHITA, K., FAGARASAN, S., YAMADA, S., SHINKAI, Y., and HONJO, T.: Class switch
recombination and hypermutation require activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID), a potential
RNA editing enzyme. Cell 102, 553 – 563 (2000)
33